Above is an example of one of the most common issues photographers face when they shoot against the overcast sky. As you can see in the left side image, the camera tries to expose to the background which is very bright and evens it out to a medium tone (core concept of exposure) when you are shooting in evaluative or matrix metering mode.

In this situation you need to understand how the camera exposes and override the camera settings and do an exposure compensation of +2 to +3 stops. When you over expose the image by that many stops, you get the result as shown in the right side image.

The right side image is called a “High Key” image where the background is the blown out sky with no details, but the colours and details of the subject are intact.

Don’t ever let the camera take control of image making, you are the photographer and you need to be in control all the time. Understand the concepts and work with it or around it.

Canon 1DX + Canon 800mm f5.6 L IS II, ISO 1250, f5.6 @ 1/640, Evaluative Metering + 2 2/3 Stop, Aperture Priority.