Photographing fog

Few tips about capturing a natural phenomenon

Photographing fog or photographing in the fog is for sure a challenging situation but the results can be stunning. What is it that makes the situation challenging?

Because of the density of the water droplets that forms the fog, the fog is acting like a huge soft box. As a result, the images taken in the fog have very little contrast and very little shadows. Colours also fade, are not vibrant.

Like any situation with little contrast, the autofocus of your camera won’t work properly so focusing your lens manually will give better results (try to autofocus on a white wall while the frame is filled just with the wall and you’ll see the autofocus struggling or not working).

The water droplets forming the fog will act like a giant reflector so the EV meter in your camera will get false information. Increasing the exposure compensation with minimum +1EV stop will give better results. Increasing the exposure compensation will affect the shutter speed so a tripod is recommended or alternatively you can increase the ISO.

The reflective part of the water droplets will create a blue cast on the entire image so it is advised to use camera’s RAW mode and adjust the white balance in post processing or if this scenario is not possible, select the overcast/cloudy mode from white balance presets.

From aesthetic point of view it is advised to have an element in the foreground to create a sense of depth.

The sense of depth can be also created if the image contains lines or other elements that can lead the viewer.

Final tip: for a certain mood, try to photograph fog at night and include some lights, fog is magic around bright lights.

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