Picture in the Fog

[Tony]

Today, as I was driving home after dropping the kids off at school and I got to the top of the hill that leads down into our valley and it was spectacular, the fog sat bellow the level of my landy in a flat blanket which extended about 2.5 x 4 miles, the whole valley was full.

I went home, drove back up the hill and took some pics but it got me thinking that i've never found it easy to take pics in the fog, or of scenes that have fog in them, say, trees sticking out of the fog etc. Anyone got any tips?

I'll have a look and see if any of the pics i took have come out ok.

Here's a couple

 

[Wayland]

Your camera's meter will usually underexpose fog, in effect trying to make the world 18% grey which is what it is calibrated for.

If you camera has any exposure compensation settings try adding +1 stop and see how it looks.

 

[Tony]

Cool, I'll try that. It also struggles something with the auto focus, which I suppose is understandable.

I've got a Pentax K10 with a tamaron 18-250 on it.

 

[Wayland]

A lot of cameras focus using contrast recognition so foggy conditions tend to be a bit confusing.

If you don't want to go manual, sometimes pre-focusing on something else at the same distance is your best option.

 

[Tony]

Yeah, that's what I tend to do with the autofocus, I need to practice with the manual, i tend to find myself using auto so that I get the shot as i'd be faffing in manual, which is down to being familiar and knowing what i'm doing to make it work for me quickly.