Tips On Capturing Mist?

[Glezga]

As Challenge 199 is weather, ill get a lot of mist because I start work early and we do get a lot of mist!

Any tips on capturing it?

I’m finding focusing and exposure a problem, really bright skies and dark land etc. I took about 60 images this morning and got the 3 below. I spent a fair bit of time editing them too.

I only had my 50 with me.

Thanks
Steve

Mist1 by Steven McNeill, on Flickr

Mist2 by Steven McNeill, on Flickr

Mist3 by Steven McNeill, on Flickr

[Trev B]

Nice set, got that early morning look about them.

[Bill53]

Very nice, they look great.

[NathCarr91]

Pictures look grand to me Steve .

There's loads you could try though if you're struggling. If bright skies and dark land are what you're getting. You could Try a grad filter on your lens. Cokin system is probably the cheapest that remains good quality with very little to no colour cast. You should also try exposure bracketing and take a few shots under exposed (to get an acceptable exposure for the sky) then some at "correct exposure" and then a few shots over exposed (to get an acceptable exposure for the foreground) and then stack them all in your editing software and you should get an image that is well exposed top to bottom. It's worth saying that this should be done and different increments for example 2 stops under, 1 stop under, then 0 , then 1 stop over and then 2 stops over. It doesn't have to be that big of a gap between, it can be done in smaller increments, this was just an example. Plus you get so much more dynamic range in the stacked image, the only downside is the file size is going to be huge afterwards. I done a 5 image one the other month of a waterfall and it was 87mb. Took my old laptop a while to merge it all.

You could also try to focus on the land, get a reading and then whilst your finger is still half pressed on the shutter button, recompose the image then take it.

Whenever I want to shoot an early morning mist, which I do a lot. I've always set my ISO at around 400 to help pick some more detail from the mist and always tried to keep the sun around 90degrees from my lens this way I don't end up with big bright patches in the image as I've always found the mist amplifies and spreads the light out further, kind of like a diffuser on a flash I guess. Lens hoods do help reduce flare on the edges of the image. The dedicated canon one for the 50mm is great. It's reversible to so can stay on the lens without getting in the way.

For focusing I would switch on to manual focus and and focus 1/3rd of the way up the scene. In auto focus you might struggle locking focus due to the mist causing nothing to focus on.

These are just my tips from what I've done in the past, I still get some images that are a failure but most of them are usable now .

[El Sid]

Those 3 are working for me, especially 2 & 3.

Don't really have any specific mist tips, usually it happens far too early for me, a morning person I ain't...

As a general point though mist can fool the meter into underexposing somewhat so you may find you need to add exposure compensation to offset this. Alternatively the trick of setting the exposure manually 1 or 2 stops over for the brightest part of the scene (as I mentioned elsewhere) can help. To some extent as long as the bright areas haven't blown out it remarkable what you can pull from the shadows in post.

[Glezga]

Thanks, ill try bracketing and stacking in lightroom - before i spent anymore ;) .

i think you all know what i mean when i say - the images just don’t get the look or feel of the mist at the time of capture. the 2nd one above is close, but mostly, like 1 & 3 they come through like a white, transparent barrier, like a misty sheet of glass and hasn’t got the atmosphere that you see live. I know it CAN be captured!

Lol I have no choice but to be a morning person. Its either 5am rise or shift work for me I’m afraid. Can’t complain, I work in the countryside and sometimes coast. now ive picked up a camera – all I see now is opportunities.

Thanks

Steve

[mackem george]

Certainly looking good to me a early autumnal scene.