Help Please! "Foggy" Picture!

Aldazar

In the first picture below, the whole picture seems to be "foggy," but in a flat, uniform way rather than as if there really was fog in the area (there wasn't). I'm also pasting another picture taken in the same area just minutes later to demonstrate that it's not the air or anything like that.

Anyway, this "foggy" thing is rather aggravating and I'm hoping someone can tell me what's causing it and how I can avoid it in the future! This isn't the first time it's happened to me either!

You should be able to click through for meta-data, etc., but if there are problems let me know.

Thanks for the help!

Foggy:


No Fog:

blaser321

The first one was over exposed
you had the camera set in auto and it read the light wrong the only way to fix it is to shoot in a manual mode and set the exposer


I worked on it a little by adding black , contrast and some sharping

mud390

I can't help with fixing the picture, but I see what you mean. Just a guess here, but if you had your camera indoors where it was cool (air conditioned), and stepped outside and immediately took the picture your lens may have had some moisture on it. I've noticed this a few times, especially at night with high humidity. Easiest way to fix that problem is to either just let the lens warm up a minute and moisture will naturally dissipate, or leave your camera in an area that is the same or similar to the outside temp. Just a thought.

Kris

jdorseydesign

Another possibility is that it looks like the sun is coming from behind them a bit. If you didn't have a lens hood on the lens you could be looking at the results of lens flare.

fireguy.ed

My 2-cents, looks like both overexposure AND lens flare. ISO 100, f5 @ 1/80 on a bright day = LOTS-O-LIGHT, and with the sun coming at the camera, ugh, Yep, I've done that!!!!

I would've thought that on AV, the camera would have sped up the shutter some as bright as it seems to be in the shot....

And I've done the temperature difference thing too!!!

But, I could be wrong on all counts

I guess the thing to do would be to pay attention to the conditions when it happens. Did you just change "atmospheres"? Is there sun on the lens front? Does it happen on the first shot after turning on or waking from "sleep"? What else might affect the shot?

I don't know if keep the viewer on or not, but you might also want to have it on to review your shots for a while to help narrow down the cause.

I you see a foggy shot, immediately go through the physical conditions to see if you can pinpoint anything that might affect the shot.
And you can try different things to get a better shot, especially while the subject(s) are still there.

I don't know if any of this helps, but keep shooting!

Be Prepared, Be Safe, God Bless

DeeCajun

It looks better and I would like to say that it is a very delightful photo.

The mom (?) looks so proud and leaning in is a sign of love. Love it.

Aldazar

Thanks all for your helpful suggestions! Thanks especially to blaser for taking the trouble to fix it up a little, it definitely looks a lot better with your tweaks, so I'll try doing those myself too!

I was definitely shooting with the sun behind the subjects, but I didn't realize that would cause this uniform "fogginess" across the photo.

Also, regarding lens flare and hoods, am I incorrect in thinking that a lens hood won't help if the sun is more or less directly in front of the lens and only really helps when the sun is at an angle/to the side?

Finally, I realize that shooting backlit subjects is rarely ideal, but sometimes (backdrop, for example), it's "necessary". I'd previously thought that as long as you corrected your exposure to make sure the subjects aren't silhouetted , the shot would come out fine - if that's what's causing the "fog" effect though, is there anyway to prevent that other than just dialing down the exposure? (I assume that if I do that, the subjects will start to look underexposed. Now that I think about it though, that's what fill flash is for...=P)

And yeap, that's my mum and my little sister...=)

Macushla

I get this effect a lot. It wasn't until the other day when I converted some photos to black and white and someone commented that some were overexposed that I realized the ones that look 'foggy' in color are overexposed in black and white. That is definitely my problem with foggy photos.

I'm trying to pay more attention to the camera's histogram along with how it looks in the camera screen.

topcat374

Having experienced this problem too here's my make-shift solution! I've found that raising the 'adjust Smart Fix' in PS elements by just 1% often improves the situation with very little effort. I've taken the liberty of having a go at it with your picture - hope you don't mind:D

D'Buggs

Did you also use a flash, perhaps without a hood??? That would do it.

It's clearly over expo'd, if not from a flash, then the ambiant. I always have my hood on and keep aware of what the histo is telling me.

Darren Troy C

blaser321 wrote:

The first one was over exposed
you had the camera set in auto and it read the light wrong the only way to fix it is to shoot in a manual mode and set the exposer

Ummmm, nope. Couple more ways of dealing with it than "just" that.

D'Buggs

Metering mode.... did you use 'matrix'???

Aldazar

D'Buggs wrote:

Metering mode.... did you use 'matrix'???

Yeap, pretty sure I had metering on the full automatic metering mode...

Guess I need to get a lens hood! =P

Scott_Quier

Your general foggy effect is the result of the sun hitting a large portion of the front element.

The lens hood is intended to keep the sun off the front element of your lens. The angles at which that works will vary from one hood to the next. Sometimes the recommended hood is not enough to do the job. I've gotten my share of foggy shots. This is one reason I (almost) always wear a wide-brimmed had when I'm shooting. I use it to shield the front element of the lens when the hood isn't up to the task. I move the hat to a point where it just starts to show in the viewfinder then move it up a bit and shoot. So far, I've not gotten any shots of the edge of the hat and most of my shots when I use this technique don't show the loss of contrast you've got here. Of course, this is easiest when I'm also using a tripod

ivar

Since this is turning out to be about technique & editing, I've moved this over to Technique