Lighting help needed

[mm0626]

I recently took the attached photo and am wondering how to "cut the haze." Should I employ a filter on my lense when shooting during daylight, are my settings off, ???? Also, can this be fixed in post-processing using Elements 9? I'm a beginner on the software end.......

Thanks!

 

[shefjr]

I'm a noob so I'm unsure about what can be done pp. I do know though that you would have been better off shooting in the "golden hour" meaning dusk or dawn. Just my thought on how I would have attempted the photo.

 

[mm0626]

Agree, but unfortunately this particular tour I was on was during non-prime time, which is why I'm searching for answers to address. Thanks.

 

[Ysarex84 78]

Some things just won't photograph well. You found one. Best then to enjoy the moment and not waste time in vain attempts to take bad photos. Hazy photos can be improved using Multiply and Overlay blends but this photo requires extreme correction that will also cause extreme damage in the form of noise, posterization and exaggeration of JPEG artifacts. You took the photo with a Nikon D5100. In the event that you have an NEF file a dramatically superior result would be possible.

Joe

 

[davisphotos]

I'm with Ysarex, buy a postcard of the view, and just enjoy the moment. I'm always a bit perplexed by the hordes of people I see on the Maine coast where I live with their cameras pressed to their faces taking mediocre photos and completely missing the chance to experience the beauty for themselves when they could buy a $1 postcard.

 

[tirediron]

There really isn't a lot you can do about haze; shooting first thing in the morning will help, or, if it's pollution, on a windy day.

 

[KmH]

A B + W 72mm Skylight 1A Coated Glass Filter (KR1.5)

or a B+W 77mm Clear UV Haze with Multi-Resistant Coating (010M)

may have helped with the haze in the air.

There is usually less particulate matter in the air in the mornings. By mornings, this time of year, I mean no later than about 1 hour after sunrise. Sunrise here in central Iowa is 5:30 AM.

 

[Ysarex84 78]

I'm with Ysarex, buy a postcard of the view, and just enjoy the moment. I'm always a bit perplexed by the hordes of people I see on the Maine coast where I live with their cameras pressed to their faces taking mediocre photos and completely missing the chance to experience the beauty for themselves when they could buy a $1 postcard.

So your comment requires that I tell a story: What photographer isn't familiar with Ansel Adams' famous photo Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite Valley: http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/adams/adams_storm.jpg Every dentist office has a copy hanging in the lobby.

If you visit the park that view is actually right off the road. There's a parking lot there and a pull over. The Parks Dept. has even placed a sign there with a camera on it: Photo op! However times have changed. When Ansel took his photo Sacramento wasn't nearly as big nor choked with nearly so many pollution spewing cars. Today on an average summer day a thick yellow hazy of smog and poison floats in the valley. The last time I visited I stopped to see how those two pine trees in the photo lower right corner were doing -- still there. The yellow smog was thick and menacing when I pulled in next to a tour bus of Japanese tourists. I watched as everyone of them in an orderly line walked right up to the camera sign on the post and snapped their own personal copy of the Yosemite Valley Vista. I took one look at the cr*p in the air and never took my camera out of the bag.

Joe

 

[Buckster]

You're actually allowed to do both, if you want to.

Sounds crazy, I know, but you CAN enjoy the view for as long as you like AND take a photo (or more than one! Gasp!!), if you want to. It's not like they're mutually exclusive propositions or that you have to decide to only do one or the other.

Some of us like to shoot, even touristy stuff that's been shot a million times. Some of us like to see if we can shoot it as well as what we'd see on a typical postcard, or maybe even better. We call that a "hobby", and find it to be "enjoyable".

In the several years since I shot this and about another couple hundred photos around that valley, I've never been sorry that I did - not even once. I still enjoy looking at it, and it still takes me right back to the day I was standing there, feeling the breeze and enjoying the scenery in real life. It's a single capture of a much larger memory that I treasure that transports me in a moment back to that place.

The 13" x 19" print that hangs on my wall in a matted frame makes me happy too, and I notice that a lot of other people seem to enjoy looking at it for some reason.

Hard to believe, I know - should've just bought a postcard...

 

[Ysarex84 78]

I've got no problem with taking classic tourist shots if a workable photo is possible. I also like my shot of the lower falls on the Yellowstone. What I was trying to say was many tourists arrive at such places when the lighting/weather preculdes a successful photo. That's a nice shot of the valley. A different day, light and weather and, as in my last visit, it made no sense to take the camera out of the bag.

Joe

 

[Buckster]

I've got no problem with taking classic tourist shots if a workable photo is possible. I also like my shot of the lower falls on the Yellowstone. What I was trying to say was many tourists arrive at such places when the lighting/weather preculdes a successful photo. That's a nice shot of the valley. A different day, light and weather and, as in my last visit, it made no sense to take the camera out of the bag.

Joe

I can understand that, to some degree, and it's certainly just a personal preference/decision.

I would personally pull it out and shoot no matter what to capture whatever particular conditions existed at the time, and I'd try to work with them to make an interesting photo regardless of, or perhaps in spite of, those conditions. But that's just me.

 

[Designer]

I recently took the attached photo and am wondering how to "cut the haze." Should I employ a filter on my lense when shooting during daylight, are my settings off, ???? Also, can this be fixed in post-processing using Elements 9? I'm a beginner on the software end.......

Thanks!

There will always be some haze, more or less, depending upon the day/location. Artists use this phenomonon, called "aerial perspective" as a technique to create the illusion of great depth in the scene they are creating.

If this is a location that you can visit on a regular basis, just wait for a day when the haze is not so thick. Your best bet will be in winter.

 

[AKinPA]

I just joined this forum tonight in order to ask or first search for an answer to the question: what kind of weather conditions will minimize haziness in a photo? Particularly, I need an image of mountain range(s) for a blog I'm starting. Which will also involve other pix/videos in wooded, mountainous, essentially rural terrain. But the first image I need is for the front page banner of the blog. I found the spot I will likely be using for that image just this weekend. Unfortunately, a winter scene will not work, at least not yet.
Aside from the weather conditions, I do not have the means, with my current working cameras, to add filters. The only image processing software I have is Picasa3. Can't afford the bucks for anything like Photoshop.
What are "Multiply and Overlay blends" and "NEF file"?
Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[Gavjenks]

I don't get what the problem is with the photo in the OP. Contrast is a little low, but the atmospheric perspective that the haze is causing I think lends a lot of greatly NEEDED depth to the scene. Ysarex's edit of it is wayy less compositionally compelling, because it suddenly became two big strips of smudgy, featureless dark green and light blue, whereas in the original, the distance is palpable and you feel the rolling hills much more.

I don't have photoshop on this friend's computer, but I would just up the contrast with curves a bit but without differentially trying to doge or burn separate hills or anything, to maintain the depth.

Would this photo http://www.explore-drawing-and-painting.com/images/aerial-perspective-1.jpg be better if they cut out all the haze? No, it'd be a huge purple brick with awkward clouds at the very top and no lines or anything interesting at all.

 

[cynicaster]

It's true that sometimes the conditions are such that there will be no amount of gear, knowledge, and post processing on the planet that will get you the result you want. Typically, if it looks like it's one of those situations, I just accept it and shoot anyway, knowing that there is a very small chance of getting any keepers. Why not? With every photo there is the potential to learn something, even if that "something" is just the ability to recognize a futile photographic situation.

As for your photo OP, even if there's no way to fully "rescue" it, as a general suggestion you probably want to learn how to use the curves tool to control contrast in post.