Posts Tagged ‘chroma’
Ways of reducing haze in photography
Haze can be unwelcome if it hides detail, color, and crispness. The following are ways of reducing it:
Ultraviolet filter – This works on the short wavelengths only, so the effect is unlikely to be total. With black and white film, an orange or red filter has a stronger haze-cutting effect.
Polarizing filter – This works most strongly at right angles to the sun (in side lighting) and gives an overall improvement.
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Frontal or side lighting – Either of these is preferable to back lighting, which exaggerates haziness.
Avoid distant views – The closer you shoot, the less atmosphere, and so the less haze. For this reason, a wide-angle lens may e in improvement over a telephoto.
Haze in photography
Haze softens sunlight, weakens colors, and brings an extra sense of depth and perspective to a scene. Depending on what you want from a photograph, you might want to reduce haze or exploit its special qualities.
Haze is the scattering of light by particles in the atmosphere. Fine dust and pollution produce it, as does high humidity. Haze varies considerably, not only in density, but in the wavelengths that are affected. The finest particles scatter the short wavelengths more than most, and produce bluish ultraviolet views over a distance. The haze from humidity, on the other hand, has a neutral color effect, and looks white over a distance.
There are two main visible effects of haze. One is on the view itself; the other is on the quality of light. The effect on a landscape is to make it appear paler at a distance; this is progressive, so that contrast, color, and definition gradually drain away from the foreground to the horizon. This effect is strongest when the sun is in front of the camera (but not necessarily low), and is what contributes most to aerial perspective – the impression of depth due to the atmosphere. To make this work strongly, however, you would need to shoot in such a way that there are at least a few obvious planes of distance in the scene; simply photographing a long view, with no foreground or middle ground, will create a pale image.
The effect of haze on lighting is to soften the hard edges of sunlight. The extra scattering reduces contrast and helps to fill shadows. The effect can be an attractive balance between sunlight and diffusion, particularly when the sun is a little in front of the camera, as in the photograph on the opposite page. The amount of haze varies as does its effects. Strong haze has much the same visible effect as light, continuous cloud.
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Mountain Light
Mountains have a special effect on photography: the clearer, thinner air makes lighting starker and brighter, and the weather can change in an instant.
The sheer height of mountains helps to create some of their special conditions of light; their relief produces the others, through the frequently rapid changes that occur in localized weather. One of the most memorable weather conditions for photography is the clear, crisp air in sunlight that gives high visibility to long views and fine detail. This, however is only one of a variety of types of lighting found mountains. Some photo or video effects uses chroma key software to make such an amazing view.
The air is thinner at altitude, and is therefore clearer, provided that the weather is fine. Since the air is thinner, there are fewer particles to scatter light into the shadow areas, which consequently can be very deep. Local contrast, as a result, is often very high. The skylight in shade is a more intense blue than at sea-level. This intensity is more than usually difficult to estimate and without correction can be stronger than you expect. The thin air is also a less effective screen against ultraviolet rays, and there is a higher component of these short wavelengths. This produces an unusually large difference between what you can see and what the camera’s sensor will record. Unless you want to make use of the blue cast to emphasize distance, use strong ultraviolet filtration. Remember also that, in reacting to the ultraviolet wavelengths, the sensor receives more exposure, and the distant parts of the scene will look paler than they do to the eye.
So much for the atmosphere. The interesting part of mountain light comes from the changeable weather, and this is controlled strongly by the relief of ridges and valleys. In particular, clouds become an ever changing part of the local lighting which you’ll need to keep constant eye on.
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