This time of the year we drive down to Big Sur
to virtually "chase the fog". While many tourists will be disappointed
that they hardly can see anything more often than not when they
rush down Big Sur we smile if we see the fog.
There are 4 kinds of weather in Summer at Big Sur and this can
change every mile or so drastically:
- Full sunshine: Good for the soul and bad for photography
- Overcast: Not so good for the soul but ok for photography
- Strong fog: Bad for both
- Patches of fog: This is what we are waiting for
Yesterday was probably one of the best days we had in the last
years. The parts of Big Sur we wanted to photograph showed nice
patches of fog. The fog was dense but not really too dense.
The fun and challenge of making fog shots is that you have a
lot of work ahead of you in the digital darkroom. We just want
to present three photos from yesterday that we like (overall we
shot 200 pictures and have many, many hours in Photoshop ahead
of us).
Sample #1
Shot directly out of camera and viewed in RSE (Canon 1Ds Mk. II)
Histogram
These are extremely low contrast
shots. If you would just print them "as is" they would be way
to flat. The trick is to enhance the contrast and still keep
the fog
mood. This requires lots of work in the raw converter and Photoshop.
What is even more important you need to make test prints and
check how the photos work on paper.
Image tuned
in Raw Shooter
You can tune the tonality (mainly
contrast) in the raw converter quite a bit but the final work is
done in Photoshop (using layers, see our e-books
DOP3001 and DOP2000).
Here is the final (final for now)
photo out of Photoshop:
Final image out of Photoshop
Unfortunately these small crops
don't show the full story.
Sample #2
Out of camera in RawShooter (Nikon D50)
Tonality tuned in RS
Final image from Photoshop
Sample #3 
(Nearly) Final image from Photoshop (Nikon D50)
For this image we need quite a
bit of work (especially on the water in the corners).
Note: None of
these photos is a crop. Conclusion
We love the challenge that fog
photos present for us at Big Sur and plan to have a few more
sessions this year.
Please also check out some of our
best fog shots in our "Coast"
portfolio of our new site www.california-earthframes.com.
The picture "Pelican Attack" is
probably still our best fog photo of all times and was
discussed here.
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