clipped highlights when shooting fog

[lexie]

it was a pretty foggy morning round my way so i went out to try a few shots because i've never had great results in foggy conditions. i got some decent shots today but when i checked the histograms the highlights are all bunched to the right with the fog. is this just part and parcel when shooting in these conditions?

 

[arclight]

it was a pretty foggy morning round my way so i went out to try a few shots because i've never had great results in foggy conditions. i got some decent shots today but when i checked the histograms the highlights are all bunched to the right with the fog. is this just part and parcel when shooting in these conditions?

Difficult to capture well.
Try firing off about 5 bracketed esposures and shoot in RAW if you can.

 

[tdodd]

Not really. Not at all in fact. Fog usually means flat, grey light and limited dynamic range, meaning the histogram will usually bunch around the middle if the camera is left to its own devices.

Here's one of my "foggy day" shots. It's nothing exciting and the light means the dynamic range is limited - no deep blacks, no bright highlights. The histogram is well away from both edges...

Are you sure the camera is set up properly and that you don't accidentally have too much positive, or any, exposure compensation dialed in? Maybe you are in the wrong metering mode for what and how you are trying to shoot - spot perhaps?

Whatever the problem it really ought to be an easy one to deal with. Can you post an unedited image with EXIF intact?

 

[lexie]

the colour shots i have taken seem to be a lot better in terms of the histogram than my b+w ones. here's unedited versions of both:





i should have said in the op that it was the b+w shots that were blown. is this due to the limited palette? ie. a pale blue in the colour image might show as white in the mono version?

 

[tdodd]

The first shot looks a bit underexposed.

I do note from downloading your second file that the darkest parts of the image are not actually quite black. The blown area is not that extensive and it's not like there would be any detail up there in the foggy sky to matter if you had avoided clipping. So all in all I don't think you have really lost anything from the shot as captured. It might need some tweaking for maximum visual appeal.

However, there is a surprising amount of contrast, so I do wonder just how you captured and processed the image and what settings were used. Did you shoot this as a JPEG, or raw, and if JPEG did you have the contrast turned up in the camera? Did you shoot to B&W in camera or perform the conversion later on in software?

I see you already had EC turned down to -0.7, but it appears that you just needed to go a little further since the bulk of the scene is dark, especially the centre and the area upon which you most likely focused. That has no doubt increased the influence of the darker bits, leading to the hint of overexposure you see. If you'd shot at -1 EC instead of -0.7 I think you would have been very close to optimum. If you reduced the contrast a little that might have also provided scope to capture more dynamic range in camera.

Shooting raw would give the maximum flexibility to tweak the shot for ultimate aesthetic appeal and also given you the option to play around with different "colour filters" to try to achieve different effects with what little colour there might be in the scene.

 

[lexie]

The first shot looks a bit underexposed.

I do note from downloading your second file that the darkest parts of the image are not actually quite black. The blown area is not that extensive and it's not like there would be any detail up there in the foggy sky to matter if you had avoided clipping. So all in all I don't think you have really lost anything from the shot as captured. It might need some tweaking for maximum visual appeal.

However, there is a surprising amount of contrast, so I do wonder just how you captured and processed the image and what settings were used. Did you shoot this as a JPEG, or raw, and if JPEG did you have the contrast turned up in the camera? Did you shoot to B&W in camera or perform the conversion later on in software?

I see you already had EC turned down to -0.7, but it appears that you just needed to go a little further since the bulk of the scene is dark, especially the centre and the area upon which you most likely focused. That has no doubt increased the influence of the darker bits, leading to the hint of overexposure you see. If you'd shot at -1 EC instead of -0.7 I think you would have been very close to optimum. If you reduced the contrast a little that might have also provided scope to capture more dynamic range in camera.

Shooting raw would give the maximum flexibility to tweak the shot for ultimate aesthetic appeal and also given you the option to play around with different "colour filters" to try to achieve different effects with what little colour there might be in the scene.

how you see it is how it was shot. only shot in jpeg because i had limited space left on the card due to a busy day yesterday and a broken 8gb sd card in the bag which i only discovered this morning.

i just checked and it has a bit of added contrast in b+w mode in camera. i might start to shoot in raw more so that i can avoid any problems like this, force of habit keeps me shooting jpeg just i think.

thanks for all the advice dude

 

[thorton]

i actually quite like that second shot lol, the first just seems a bit underexposed and lacking in contrast, a little lift should do it justice - although to me it looks slightly OOF too?

 

[lexie]

i actually quite like that second shot lol, the first just seems a bit underexposed and lacking in contrast, a little lift should do it justice - although to me it looks slightly OOF too?

cheers dude, i quite like it myself but can't help thinking that i could have done better. but that's all part of the fun i guess.

 

[tdodd]

To come back to the second shot, when you shoot on an overcast or foggy day the sky becomes your entire light source for the scene. It's like one giant softbox for the sun. When you have really thick, deep fog and it is impossible to make out the position of the sun above it then you really do end up with a scene of low contrast and low dynamic range.

In the second image, while the fog might be quite dense, it looks like it was not very high, and you can clearly see the brighter areas of the "sky" where the sun is making its position known. What you are basically doing in that shot is shooting upwards into your light source. That's why it is a job to keep the "highlights" under control while still capturing detail in the dark underside of the pier. Having contrast turned up in the camera is adding to the effect.

Keith, I hope you don't mind, but I've had a little dabble with your shots. Personally, if there is any editing to be done, I'd rather have a raw file to work with, but here are my efforts with your two JPEG files.....

 

[trencheel303]

that second one is nice lex.

 

[lexie]

cheers guys, thanks for the info and the edits tim. i'm going to start shooting raw to avoid having to try and recover shots in jpeg form, raw seems a much easier proposition for this lol.
the in camera 'creative style' modes have all been returned to the default settings so i'll work from them for a while to see how it goes, so hopefully no 'contrasty' shots.

 

[tdodd]

We were blessed with fog this morning. Here are shots taken a few seconds apart, one aiming away from the position of the sun, the other aiming right at the brightest part of the sky, where the sun was minutes away from breaking through. To avoid blowing the sky in the "sunny" shot I had to reduce the exposure by 2 stops. Even so, the histogram is well contained within the edges.

This is the sort of low contrast, low dynamic range image I usually associate with foggy days....

Here's the image shooting straight towards the "sunny" portion of the sky. The dynamic range has increased, but is still comfortably within the limits of the camera. Note that the highlights end at about the same position in the histogram, safely short of clipping, and still I am nowhere near losing any detail at the shadow end of things....