Shooting clouds with the K-7

I seem to use the 18-250mm ED SMC (kit)lens on the K-7 most of the time.
I'd like to capture shots of storm clouds but not getting the right exposures. Either the foreground is very underexposed or the clouds are blow-out.

I've tried many different settings trying to get it right - but not having the greatest of luck so far.

Does anyone have experience in this area of photography which I can learn from?
Many thanks.

You should get some graduated ND filters. The difference between even a cloudy sky and the ground will be several stops so without these filters or some post processing you are never going to be able to get both right ( or even close).

Ideally wait for a sunny interval - it can look so dramatic. Or you could try autobracketing and then post processing. The auto-bracketing is great on the K-7, rattles up to 5 shots off very fast which means they are easier to align in PS.

You can also use post processing in Photoshop, select the sky area and darken it down using levels.

Yes this seems like a something worth trying.
I don't mind pp of course but I'm not to happy with heavy pp - which is what I had to do to bring out the foreground in this test shot yesterday.




Definately

Yes I've tried this, but alignment is still a bit off, I need to use a tripod more often but it's not always convenient of course.

Thanks to all for responding, I'm on the right track I think - just need more time and experience by the sounds of it (and an ND filter)

Thanks

HDR ?

HDR is a good idea or use a PLC filter. I usually use ND filters in various density (from 2 to 10 depending on the weather) but I got good results with a PLC filter as well.

using a polariser made all the difference to my own sky pics.

Another way would be to shoot in RAW or RAW+ and then use Split-RAW technique in PP. Follow the link here to get a video tutorial of how to do this.

If this is a question about my sample photo above, no - not HDR.
Was a single shot processed in Xara Designer Pro6.

If it's a suggestion, then thanks but I'm not a fan of HDR as a rule, I've seen way too many overcooked results.
A little tone mapping with PhotoMatix helps with some images, but generally this too can look overdone with very little effort

Yes, after watching that video tut' I see it's a very similar technique to what I use with JPG in Xara Designer Pro6, though of course I don't quite have the dynamic range that RAW offers me.

I've not shot RAW very much lately (I shot RAW with the *istDS 90% of the time) due to a desire to master the K-7 shooting JPG first, don't ask why - it just seems a logical approach to me.

Maybe shooting in RAW+? It gives you the best of both worlds as you got a RAW image as well as a JPEG one. Then just use the one that is best suited for your purpose.
I always shoot in RAW+ (OK, I got 12TB now of storage as well, so no shortage here) but it just gives you the extra flexibility and you always can delete what you do not want/need or when you got the finished picture.
Just a thought.