Saw this wonderful fog the other day and tried to capture it. Turns out it’s not as easy as I first thought. Am not quite happy when th the result yet. Any pointers to how to capture fog well are very welcome :)
Go there early in the morning. Like, 1 hour before sunrise. Then you have time to look around and find nice places.
Find little things for subjects / eyecatchers, so that it becomes a little more than “only” landscape.
At sunrise, it starts to get interesting. Try different angles: against the sun, or sideways, etc. Take your time while the fog changes, as the sun eats it up.
Odds are you could make the fog pop with a bit of post processing. Amusingly, if you took this on a phone it might have been actively fighting against the fog. If you have a raw file you’ll have a bit more leeway for editing, but messing with the JPEG should be fine.
Found the fog while fooling around with a drone. It was too far out to walk so I flew there. This comes from the raw shot (dji Mini 3)
Here are two somewhat heavy handed edits using the jpeg on .world. Obligatory I am not a great editor, but I think the fog needs a touch more definition and a more contrasting background to pop better.
The first photo has:
- local contrast to give the fog a little more definition. This is the only thing I masked, everything below was applied to the whole photo
- shadows and highlights, mostly to crush the treeline behind the fog some and give the fog more contrast
- tone curve + base curve, again to add some more contrast
- haze removal to make the tree line darker
The second edit only has the addition of low light vision to de saturate and further add some contrast.
Wow, your edit is amazing. Thank you for the insights and for putting so much work in it!
Ha, thanks. I’m glad you found the post somewhat informative! It looks like it was a pretty cool scene.