I spent an evening walking around and shooting with my relatively new Nikon D7000 and I ended up not liking most any of the photos I took..
Let's take this one for example:
The sky was blue and vibrant when I took this shot. Why did it come out so dull?
I was shooting with aperture priority and ISO 1000 and 1600 that evening. What are some things I could have done to make this photo more vibrant?
Some post processing is needed for some images, and most images benefit from some post processing.
When you take an image like this, where most of it is blue, the automatic white balance will be fooled into thinking that the image should be much less blue. If you had used the "daylight" setting for white balance, it would have been a lot closer to the actual colors.
I wan't there, so I don't know how it should really look, and it's also up to each photographer to create their own experience of the siuation, but here is an example of what you can do with it:
Temperature: -31
Tint: +14
Exposure: -1.05
Fill light: 5
Blacks: 2
Brightness: -1
Contrast: -6
Clarity: +10
Vibrance: +10
IT is enough to add a cooling filter (25% Cooling Filter (80) in Photoshop) to the image and increase a little the contrast and saturation (10% or so). Do not overdo it or the result will be unrealistic.
You could use a polarizing filter for a darker sky. always shoot in raw to be able to change the white balance later. If unsure of the details you whant to promote in the image try overexposing it a little so you cand choose the right exposure later. Just watch out not to get burned white spots.
Always try to shoot at lower ISO. Only increse iso if the exposure time is to low (higher than 1/(lens focal length * 1.5 crop factor) )
I'm surprised nobody mentioned a polarizing filter. That can do wonders on a blue sky, depending on the angle from the sun.
Think about what sky light actually is. It's light from the sun getting scattered from small particles in the atmosphere. Those are going to be largely dielectric, so will be polarized over a range of angles. The light from any one spot in the sky is all bouncing from the sun to you at the same angle, so will be largely polarized the same way. However, the whiter components are bouncing off of particles large enough for significant polarization, whereas the blue is bouncing off of particles barely large enough to scatter the light at all since all but the shortest (blue) wavelengths didn't get scattered. This makes the blue of the sky less polarized than the general haze. The haze can then be selectively reduced with a polarizing filter at the right orientation. This doesn't work for sky opposite the sun since that's reflecting at near right angles and therefore not polarized.
The easiest first step you could have taken is shoot a neutral target like a gray card or Expo Disc. Your color temperature seems too warm, and the target would have helped you bring all your images into line. Good instructions on setting custom white balance on your camera are in the camera's manual and you may find pointers from Expo Disc as well.
Too high a color temperature makes skies look "muddy" so getting that right in camera will help you later to avoid taking this post-processing.
That said, if you color shift from yellows to blues just a bit, I think you'll find the overall hue range more pleasing. You can then add a bit more pop using contrast and saturation, if appropriate. Be careful not to overdo these, as they can bring up digital noise in high ISO images.
Nikon D7000 is a great camera and has plenty of tools.
It still looks pretty sunny out so I would not make ISO any higher then is needed. I'd go 200/400 or AUTO ISO for outside photography. Next Auto WB is OK for outside, set AP a slower speed ~ 250/1. If you can afford that camera you can afford Photomatix HDR software and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. Then use the breacketing on you camera to blend the three photos in bracking set for -2,-1,+1 on the bracketing exposure. When you process the 3 RAW photos through Photomatix software, you get the perfect photo you are looking for. Or even better then you expected. Photomatix & Photoshop Elelments will be well worth your money if you enjoy digital photography!
Learn the HDR photography techniques, or learn processing techniques (like those offered by Photoshop) so that you can highlight the sky and change the color.
The buildings look OK in color so just fix the sky in Adobe Elements: it should be an easy fix.
FOr in camera results on D 7000, you may try the following:
1) Set the WB to Auto Warmer ( and set to B1 on the grid, you will get a cooler temp but also get the amber.
2) Under picture control set to VIVID 2 and crank up the Saturation to max and Hue + 1 .
Set the sharpness to 9
3) ISO 100
4) Exp compensation -0.7
5) Click with positive bias ( 2 or 3 ) as you like it on the metering scale. You will get a contrast pic with Vivid blue sky.
Please understand if there is haze then the blue will be duller.
Saturation will help and the B1 on the grid will boost the blue.
These ofcourse are manual settings.
The photograph looks clear enough. So you've two options:
Of course always better use polarizer as others says. But back to this photo. here is too much blue on skyscraper, so using color balance only on whole picture, will be not enough. You must select sky with mask and then try with more blue. Anyway, this photo is overexposure a little my opinion. If this is RAW, try to change it back, also try with color balance. Contrast here is not good too, and color balance. Color balance because too much blue on scene and in camera software can't recognize it good. In photos like this, you should check white ballance on gray card or just on white/gray area (wall etc), not on whole photo.
