A tree on the hill with fog and frost

[SJ.Butel]

Hi,
Here is one from this past weekend.  I waited a good while for the fog to clear around this tree and it did for about 10 mins.   Would anyone care to comment on their favorite or perhaps offer any suggestions on things they might of done differently?

The closer ones were taken at 400mm, the further was a crop from 105mm.
Thanks for your time.

[wolfnowl]

Steve:  I like the little 'island' created by the fog, and to me it's the most prominent part of the image.  However, I don't think one should highlight it too much - make the viewer wander around a little bit first.  Therefore I'd go with your first image, but I'd crop it a bit differently to move it off center a bit more.  Something like this perhaps.  You could also remove some from the bottom, but I went with a standard 4x5 crop rather than getting to fancy.  I also rotated it a bit.

[attachment=22840:IMG_3436.jpg]

Mike.

[SJ.Butel]

Steve:  I like the little 'island' created by the fog, and to me it's the most prominent part of the image.  However, I don't think one should highlight it too much - make the viewer wander around a little bit first.  Therefore I'd go with your first image, but I'd crop it a bit differently to move it off center a bit more.  Something like this perhaps.  You could also remove some from the bottom, but I went with a standard 4x5 crop rather than getting to fancy.  I also rotated it a bit.

[attachment=22840:IMG_3436.jpg]

Mike.

I see what you mean, thanks for adding the crop too.  Your help is much appreciated!

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I like Mike's variant. It's a lovely scene.

Eric

[francois]

I love this mountain ridge & tree. I can almost feel the fog. Mike's version is - in my opinion - better balanced than the original. The square crop is well suited to the scene.

[SJ.Butel]

Thanks both of you for your thoughts and again Mike for the crop.

[tokengirl]

I agree with Mike's comments, I too prefer the first one.  Mike's rotation to get the horizon straight also helped a lot (crooked horizons in landscapes are a pet peeve of mine, so not everyone thinks this is as important as I do though).

I think the overall processing needs some work.  It's too gray, really needs a little more range of tones.  Somewhere in there should be a bright white and a rich black.

[SJ.Butel]

I agree with Mike's comments, I too prefer the first one.  Mike's rotation to get the horizon straight also helped a lot (crooked horizons in landscapes are a pet peeve of mine, so not everyone thinks this is as important as I do though).

I think the overall processing needs some work.  It's too gray, really needs a little more range of tones.  Somewhere in there should be a bright white and a rich black.

I know what you mean with the horizon, I am the same but I obviously messed up here.  I did spend some time trying to straighten it when i cropped it down originally but i was using the fog layer as my guide.  I did just check now and even that is a bit off.  I remember reading here that it's quite often a good idea to leave your images for 3+ months before posting them so you have more chance to look at them... i guess this is a good example  


I know it probably depends on the image quite a lot but generally do you straighten your image based on the top horizon or the most parallel lines that are in the image (like for instance a lower mountain range, fog layer or clouds)?

Thanks for the tip about tones, i have always struggled to get B&W images that feature some fog to not look so dull.  Is this roughly the sort of thing you mean?
In LR i increase highlights to 89, lights to 11, darks -4, shadows -40 and the B&W red channel -30 (the hills are quite light brown/redish and lowered the contrast a bit to try balance it vs my original boast.

Edit: Opps i mucked up my ratios with the crop, but it shouldn't hurt the comparison of tone.

[KirbyKrieger]

I'm not going to list a preference     but I will mention what I see.

In the first of the original versions, the copyright notice is an unwelcome focus in an area of the picture plane where nothing but softness should be perceived.
The movement in this version is from bottom left to top right (movement on the picture plane), and from near to far (movement in the space depicted).  There is even a nice easy curve to this provided by the light on the far side of the middle-ground mountain range.  One goes a little bit down and in and up and out and away.  The curve in the movement is 'axled' on the lone tree.  I like it.  I could look at on consecutive days.

In Mike's crop the movement is different.  It's centered.  It's bottom to top. It's down and up and down and up and away.  The revealed tree is effective for the design (2D), but constrains the composition (3D).  The movement is excellent.  I like it.  I could look at on consecutive days.

The leveling of the horizon is most welcome.

In both versions:
The graininess is distracting (it foregrounds the surface at the expense of the illusion of space).  
The lack of darks is disappointing (the effect is technical rather than natural dimness).
(Imho) the white at the base of the tree detracts from the image (too light?).

My $0.02, now worth even less than yesterday.

[SJ.Butel]

I'm not going to list a preference     but I will mention what I see.

In the first of the original versions, the copyright notice is an unwelcome focus in an area of the picture plane where nothing but softness should be perceived.
The movement in this version is from bottom left to top right (movement on the picture plane), and from near to far (movement in the space depicted).  There is even a nice easy curve to this provided by the light on the far side of the middle-ground mountain range.  One goes a little bit down and in and up and out and away.  The curve in the movement is 'axled' on the lone tree.  I like it.  I could look at on consecutive days.

In Mike's crop the movement is different.  It's centered.  It's bottom to top. It's down and up and down and up and away.  The revealed tree is effective for the design (2D), but constrains the composition (3D).  The movement is excellent.  I like it.  I could look at on consecutive days.

The leveling of the horizon is most welcome.

In both versions:
The graininess is distracting (it foregrounds the surface at the expense of the illusion of space).  
The lack of darks is disappointing (the effect is technical rather than natural dimness).
(Imho) the white at the base of the tree detracts from the image (too light?).

My $0.02, now worth even less than yesterday.

Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts!  
When you say graininess do you mean the noise or perhaps that i have increased the clarity slider too much?  (can't remember how much as LR beta just expired 5 mins ago so I wont have access to it for a couple of days)

The white at the base of the tree is haw frost and the white on the hills is snow so perhaps that is why it seems a bit strange?  Ii will have a look at what it's like if i hold back the area under the tree when i boast highlights.  I agree though that it does detract some.

Edit: Nevermind I forgot I can use the 30 day trail for now.

[tokengirl]

Thanks for the tip about tones, i have always struggled to get B&W images that feature some fog to not look so dull.  Is this roughly the sort of thing you mean?
In LR i increase highlights to 89, lights to 11, darks -4, shadows -40 and the B&W red channel -30 (the hills are quite light brown/redish and lowered the contrast a bit to try balance it vs my original boast.

Edit: Opps i mucked up my ratios with the crop, but it shouldn't hurt the comparison of tone.

This new version looks MUCH better to my eye!

One thing to be careful of when photographing fog is metering.  Fog is almost white, and if there is fog in a lot of the scene, your meter will bring down the exposure to make that white into 18% grey, and you end up with an underexposed shot with less detail in the dark areas.  The solution is to bracket your exposures, get a couple of shots that are one and two stops over what your camera meter says.  Same concept as photographing snow scenes.

[Ed Blagden]

This new version looks MUCH better to my eye!

One thing to be careful of when photographing fog is metering.  Fog is almost white, and if there is fog in a lot of the scene, your meter will bring down the exposure to make that white into 18% grey, and you end up with an underexposed shot with less detail in the dark areas.  The solution is to bracket your exposures, get a couple of shots that are one and two stops over what your camera meter says.  Same concept as photographing snow scenes.

There speaks someone who still shoots a lot of film!

While this approach is perfectly viable, with digital you will get better results with "Expose to the right" (ETTR) technique.  This means chimping with the histogram until you get a shot which is overexposed as far as you can go but without clipping highlights.  Then in post processing you can increase blacks as appropriate and reduce brightness to end up with a correct looking exposure.  The advantage of this method is that you can bring up darks and shadows a lot more in post, as there is more information in these areas than in a conventionally exposed shot.

There is a good if somewhat old article about this here.  

Back in the day of slide film I routinely bracketed.  These days I never do so unless I intend to do something technical in post, like exposure blending.

Ed