Hazy skyline

[mfacey]

Hi all,

I went out experimenting with my camera today. Made some nice photos, but I was particularly pleased with this one of the bridge.

Sadly, it was somewhat hazy outside today, so especially the building in the background is a little blurry. Anybody have any suggestions how to clean up the haziness? I use Lightroom to touch stuff up normally, but I also have PS CS2 if necessary.

For a full-size view of the photo go here: http://www.michaelfacey.com/mr/IMG_0406.JPG

Oh, and btw, I'm just getting into this photography thing, so comments and pointers are welcome!

Thanks!

 

[Father Jack]

It looks like haze is the problem, a polarizing filter on the camera should help.

You could try increasing the contrast in photoshop and perhaps sharpening the image a tad.

FJ

 

[Lovesong]

If the problem is lack of depth of field, next time use a smaller f stop (higher number) Eg if you used f8 for the shot, next time use f11 or f16 etc.

If haze is the problem, a polarizing filter on the camera should help.

You could try increasing the contrast in photoshop and perhaps sharpening the image a tad.

FJ

I would have to agree with FJ. It seems you should have used a smaller aperture. Another thing you might want to watch for is what your ISO is. There seems to be some noise (especially in the shadow of the bridge).

 

[mfacey]

It looks like haze is the problem, a polarizing filter on the camera should help.

You could try increasing the contrast in photoshop and perhaps sharpening the image a tad.

FJ

Thanks for the advice! My camera (Canon Powershot G7) doesn't allow for filters to be attached, sadly, so I'm stuck with the controls on the camera itself and photoshop. The camera automatically set itself to an aperture of F/4, which i'd say is a bit too big for this kind of shot. I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time.

Oh, and adjusting contrast and sharpness seems to have cleared things up a bit! Thanks!

I would have to agree with FJ. It seems you should have used a smaller aperture. Another thing you might want to watch for is what your ISO is. There seems to be some noise (especially in the shadow of the bridge).

Apeture advice noted! As for the ISO setting, it was set to auto. Would a manual selection of ISO 80 (lowest on my camera) have helped, you think?

 

[Westside guy]

As for the ISO setting, it was set to auto. Would a manual selection of ISO 80 (lowest on my camera) have helped, you think?

You want the lowest ISO that'll work for the shot you're trying to capture. For bright daylight and a photo where you want a lot of depth of field (like you did in this one) - yes use the lowest ISO you can get on your camera. You might need to experiment with metering on the underside of the bridge versus the skyline, in order to get the shot you really want.

Since you've got Lightroom, you should be able to check what ISO the camera picked for that shot - look in the metadata.

 

[mfacey]

Strange, I thought I could find the ISO settings used by the camera. Maybe when its in auto it doesn't pick that up?

Here's what Lightroom has to say about the particular photo:

 

[Westside guy]

Strange, I thought I could find the ISO settings used by the camera. Maybe when its in auto it doesn't pick that up?

No, I'm sure it's in there - it's just not displayed in the standard preset metadata display in Lightroom. You'll need to poke around and find it.

You can customize that BTW. With Aperture I found I didn't quite like the default set, so I set up a preset of my own that has what I want (and then made that the default). I haven't used Lightroom in a while, but I am 99.9% sure you can do exactly the same thing in that app.

 

[mfacey]

Well I've been playing around with Lightroom a bit more, but for some reason my Canon isn't loading ISO data into the Metadata of the photos. I recentely imported some older photos taken with my Nikon, which shows ISO settings each time. Oddly, enough I'm finding ISO information in all the photos I have taken with Panasonic, Sony, Nikon, Fuji and Olympus, just not with any Canon cameras (my own G7, a SD 630, A80, IXUS 55). Could it be that the Canon's don't place this data in the EXIF Metadata?


Edit: Ok, so I just did a quick google search and found various forum posts mentioning the same problem (missing ISO values for Canon cameras.
Here's a telling excerpt I found on this review site:http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/Canon-G7.shtml

"And speaking of things missing, there is no ISO information visible in the camera file's EXIF information. I've looked at the JPGs with Photoshop, Adobe Bridge, and Lightroom, but see no ISO data. Photo Mechanic reports totally erroneous data for this field, so clearly ISO is not being placed in its normal position. When I contacted Canon about this I was told that they didn't regard it as an issue because the shooting ISO was visible in Canon's Zoombrowser (Windows) and ImageBrowser (Mac). How open-standards of them! Why Canon would decide to move ISO information from its normal position in the EXIF data fields to somewhere proprietary is anyone's guess. Thanks Canon. Now we have to run an otherwise useless program just to see what the ISO of a shot was. Sigh. I just don't get it."

That just pisses me off. I installed the awful ImageBrowser software, and low and behold, there's the ISO info (although, when set to Auto, it just displays "Auto" as opposed to the setting the camera actually used). Thanks a lot canon...

 

[G4scott]

Yeah, the ISO thing with the G7 really sucks (as well as lack of RAW, but that's a whole other issue...)

You can get a lens adapter like this one, but you want to be careful, as adding elements in front of the lens can affect image quality.

 

[glennp]

Sadly, it was somewhat hazy outside today, so especially the building in the background is a little blurry. Anybody have any suggestions how to clean up the haziness? I use Lightroom to touch stuff up normally, but I also have PS CS2 if necessary.

You can use unsharp mask with a large radius to help fix the haze in photos.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml

 

[Westside guy]

Well I've been playing around with Lightroom a bit more, but for some reason my Canon isn't loading ISO data into the Metadata of the photos. I recentely imported some older photos taken with my Nikon, which shows ISO settings each time. Oddly, enough I'm finding ISO information in all the photos I have taken with Panasonic, Sony, Nikon, Fuji and Olympus, just not with any Canon cameras (my own G7, a SD 630, A80, IXUS 55). Could it be that the Canon's don't place this data in the EXIF Metadata?

Report the problem to Adobe. I just took a look at some Canon shots in Aperture (our department has the original Digital Rebel), and it displays the ISO information just fine.