BetterPhoto Member |
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Outdoor Photos with Gray Cast
I shot rolls of film in the Grand Tetons and most pictures came back with a gray cast. I have a 75mm-300mm 4-5.6 lens. Close-ups were great, full of color and detail. Zoom shots were disappointing. I used the Sunny-16 rule. What am I doing wrong?Thanks, Khelri'
September 08, 2000
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John A. Lind |
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Awaiting its Farmer
Example of how a long telephoto can accentuate distant haze. In this case, it's a blue/gray cast in the distant bluffs from heat and humidity. Olympus OM-4, 200mm f/4 Zuiko MC (with UV filter), exposure not recorded, Kodak Elitechrome 100.
John A. Lind |
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Three possible causes and use of a telephoto will accentuate the effect in the resultant photo in all three:(1) UV haze: Film is sensitive to UV more than our eyes are. This is more a problem at altitude and with very clear and thinner air. Glass lenses will filter the high UV, but not the low UV just above the visible spectrum. The result can be "UV haze" which is what a UV filter will cut down. Your eyes won't detect this one at all. (2) Heat haze: Under conditions of a hot day with high humidity, the humidity will create a visible haze. With very high humidity on a very hot day this can be quite noticeable. Our brains do a wonderful job of tending to ignore it unless it's very thick, but film doesn't! You have to train yourself to look for this in the distance. A UV, or any other filter, won't help this much. I've uploaded a photo shot with a 200mm telephoto which shows this heat haze in the distant bluffs. The only way to get rid of this is to wait out the weather for a cool clear day, usually in the late Spring or early Fall! (3) SMOG: I don't think this is a problem in Teton National Park like it is at Yosemite, but in cityscapes this can be a very real problem. A UV filter might cut the UV component of it slightly, but as with heat haze, it really won't help much. Again the only way to really beat this one is to wait for a truly clear day. As with heat haze, the human brain marvelously ignores light SMOG and you have to train yourself to look for this in the distance. In the wilderness, any nearby wildfires can easily cause the same effect as SMOG in a cityscape. Why does a telephoto accentuate these effects? Because it brings the distant up close with higher magnification than our eyes have, flattening the depth in an image, and making distant objects seem closer. That and the fact you are no longer at the actual scene doesn't activate the brain filters like it did when you were there doing the shoot. The longer the telephoto, the more noticeable any of the three become in the photograph. -- John
September 09, 2000
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Chuck |
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All the previous answers are true, but there maybe one other thing. I teach scenic photography in Colorado in the fall every year (20 years now), and we shoot back lit and side lit pictures 90% of the time, and I almost never see a lens shade on the students' cameras. We (the class and I) take turns blocking the sun from the others' lenses. Could this be the problem? ? ? Please check me out at www.chuckdresner.com
October 02, 2000
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