So, I'm having trouble with photography. When I take photos of my fiance etc it looks good, but when I'm out and about doing landscape shots it looks pretty bad. It's either got too much contrast, or too "dull" ie a blue sky turns white or whatnot. I've tried using a polarising filter and it doesn't improve the quality much.

At first I was thinking it's my camera or my lens (the old "blame the tools" and all) however after looking at the photos of my fiance they're full of colour and vibrant etc so it makes me think I'm missing something.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...20100384_n.jpg

That's a photo of my fiance (she's darkened it a bit while in jpg format). Now, this wasn't a "professional" shoot by any means, it was just me grabbing a quick snap, however the colour there impresses me compared to my landscape work. It's mainly the sky which looks dull. Mind you, when I shoot there's usually not much cloud in the sky, and I've been told polarisers are best used with a lot of cloud etc. But what could turn a blue sky white-ish? Potential camera setting? Too much light?

I tried taking a 30 second exposure with a ND filter and the cloud looked absolutely amazing, and there was a bit of orange shining through the clouds via the sun, however the blue of the sky had all but gone. I've tried editing the blue in Lightroom and while it does do something it tends to bring out the blue everywhere else also.

I'll get a picture of the sky etc that I'm taking about when I get home but does anyone know what the problem could be or have they experienced anything like this before?

FYI I've tried auto ISO, 100, 200 etc, differenmt white balances, also tried different shutter speeds from 1/40 to 1/500. I've tried my 18-55, 55-250 and also my macro 60mm. The macro 60mm seems to have much better image quality (however the colour is similar).

I've since been told that capturing a sky is "difficult", is this true?