How can i get fog pictures

[panamike]

Took my wife to work early this morning (ime good like that) it was foggy so i thought i would have a go,to the naked eye it was very foggy but my files dont show that,what am i doing wrong.

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[panamike]

Not solved my problem but i think its the street lights,the fog has cleared a bit but with no street lights its looking more like the effect i want,need to try it in another location i think.

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[ionian]

Think about what the fog is doing optically - it's reducing contrast and saturation. Make sure your camera settings and/or PP workflow takes this into account; if you want to accentuate these features, you can reduce contrast and saturation locally in the most foggy areas.

 

[jyc860923]

Took my wife to work early this morning (ime good like that) it was foggy so i thought i would have a go,to the naked eye it was very foggy but my files dont show that,what am i doing wrong.

View attachment 494768

actually it looks pretty good to me, perhaps what makes the fog "show", is comparison. and in this case the window to the right of the frame (and also the trees in near left) is clear, creating a direct comparison to what's in the left, the foggy atmosphere illuminated by the street light in which there's a car in the distance and maybe something more hidden behind, IMO the fog is very well showed and it has certainly caused my curiosity.

 

[panamike]

actually it looks pretty good to me, perhaps what makes the fog "show", is comparison. and in this case the window to the right of the frame (and also the trees in near left) is clear, creating a direct comparison to what's in the left, the foggy atmosphere illuminated by the street light in which there's a car in the distance and maybe something more hidden behind, IMO the fog is very well showed and it has certainly caused my curiosity.

Thanks,to be honest the more i look the more the first one gets close to what i wanted.

 

[少林chris]

I think the trick is getting up super early and have patience, wait for the right "thickness". In this case, I slept on a bench in China the night/morning before in hopes on being there at the right time.

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xihu by Chris Ferreira, on Flickr

 

[David A]

Think about what the fog is doing optically - it's reducing contrast and saturation. Make sure your camera settings and/or PP workflow takes this into account; if you want to accentuate these features, you can reduce contrast and saturation locally in the most foggy areas.

Another option for people using Lightroom or a program with a "Dehaze" filter is to apply a negative amount of dehaze because that makes the image look more hazy rather than less hazy. You may want to do that in conjunction wit reductions in contrast and saturation globally and/or locally.

Another thing to try is lowering the black and white points and/or raising shadows to make them lighter while reducing highlights to make them darker. There tend to be very few really dark to black tones and very few really light (bright) to white tones in fog scenes.

You also don't see sharp detail in fog so watch your sharpening and noise reduction approach.

 

[sesser]

In this case, I slept on a bench in China the night/morning before

Now that's dedication!

 

[dornblaser]

What aperture where you using? I would think that stopping down would help. We had fog over our last snow fall here today.

 

[FastCorner]

Perhaps try a longer focal length? The fog is "denser" with distance, so you can concentrate on that with a smaller viewing angle.

 

[David A]

What aperture where you using? I would think that stopping down would help. We had fog over our last snow fall here today.

Stopping down will increase depth of field so more of the image may be sharp but fog blurs things so things obscured by fog aren't going to be particularly sharp. I'm not certain whether increased DoF will enhance or detract from the sense or mood of images of fog. I don't get much fog where I am so I get little chance to experiment.

 

[alex g]

I remember reading somewhere how it can help to have elements in the scene located across a range of distances from the camera — near, mid and far — to help emphasize the three-dimensionality of the fog. Clearly the composition of your shots achieves that, with the road receding into the distance. To accentuate the effect, you might try reducing contrast with distance using the brush tool?

 

[panamike]

What aperture where you using? I would think that stopping down would help. We had fog over our last snow fall here today.

F2.8 as i was hand holding 1/40th @ ISO 6400

 

[Klorenzo]

Perhaps try a longer focal length? The fog is "denser" with distance, so you can concentrate on that with a smaller viewing angle.

I agree with that (or heavy cropping). The same framing from a bigger distance puts more fog in between: in both shots you can see fog only in the distance.

Then dark shapes inside the fog helps, like in the second shot. Then probably a small change in exposure or tone curve can make a ton of difference.

 

[TNcasual]

I will let others discuss the technicalities of fog.

FWIW I have found that having some distance and objects at distinct distances helps enhance the fog. So you would have a close object with little haze, something in the middle distance with more haze, and something distant that is maybe barely visible. Also, when I have fog to deal with I tend to like a pretty open frame. I think it adds to the emotion of the image.

Some examples:

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For the shots from the OP, I maybe would have used a longer focal length and (if possible) stood in the middle of the road for the shot. That way you could have condensed the scene and had the road going up the frame into the distant haze. The trees would be your close distance, the car in the middle, and the road trailing off. It may be a little cliche, but I think would have more feeling.

 

[panamike]

Added some fog via ACR to the second one,does the extra fog look real.

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[David A]

Added some fog via ACR to the second one,does the extra fog look real.

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Looks good to me.

What did you do in ACR to "add fog"?

 

[panamike]

Looks good to me.

What did you do in ACR to "add fog"?

For that image
exp -0.70
contrast -42
clarity -34
dehaze -72

Brushed into the areas i wanted

 

[SOCDriver]

Distance helps, I can't find it but I was across the water from a good dense fog and my best shot was on a longer lens. Also you want a dark contrasting object to shadow in the fog, it helps give the fog a sense of weight in the photo.

Or you can fake it till you make it...I just breathed on my filter on a really humid beach to get this shot.

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A foggy evening by Sean Murphy, on Flickr