Hazy Landscapes

Hello All,

I am a noob with a Rebel XTi who has just discovered this site . I tried my luck with shooting a few landscapes, and was a little disappointed with the quality of the shots - the short of it is that the shots come out hazy and unimpressive.

First, a few specs. I have an f1.8 50mm EF-S lens mounted on my XTi body, with no filters, etc. I almost always shoot on Av, and for a lot of the aforementioned shots I had the lens pretty wide open. Since these shots were taken around noon, I didn't have to venture past ISO 100. The images were captured as large JPEGs. No other 'tweaking' was done for the shots (white-balance, exposure compensation, etc., mostly because I have no clue what they actually do :P).

Now when I looked at the scene with the naked eye, it was inspiring and clear, with lots of vivid colors and textures. My shots, however, are a different story. They look like someone has smeared a bit of gray film over the picture. I have heard that maybe a UV or haze filter will help, but I am not really sure if this is the answer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

Can you post some pics for us to see please?

First, noon is the worst time to shoot anything outdoors, landscapes included. Next, the haze can be removed with your processing software -- what are you using? It can be done with "curves" or with USM.

rogue1208 wrote in post #5620462
First, a few specs. I have an f1.8 50mm EF-S lens mounted on my XTi body, with no filters, etc. I almost always shoot on Av, and for a lot of the aforementioned shots I had the lens pretty wide open. Since these shots were taken around noon, I didn't have to venture past ISO 100.

First of all, do you mean the EF-S 18-55 lens or the EF 50 f/1.8?

Second, shooting outdoors at noon should not be needing an aperture of 1.8 or around there. Landscape if often shot with an aperture of around 5.6-11 depending on lens and light... So something is wrong right there. Also, don't be afraid to go past ISO 100 on the XTi, it should be able to handle ISOs up to around 800 without any problems.

Thanks for the replies!

exile (and everyone else) - here is a sample shot:

HTTP response: 404 | Byte size: ZERO

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

That LA...it is called smog.

ack - not sure if the images showed up or not. I have attached them just in case. The first one is the really hazy landscape, and the second is the London shot that I mentioned. I think they were too big (7 MB or so) to begin with.

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Yea I had a look at the hazy landscapes... as was said, that is smog, or general pollution. Since it is only in the background (or at least you're shooting through more of it) it was tough to get rid of quickly since using adjustments gave the foreground too much contrast. Best bet is to look for a better day and time of day.

Smog or no, ya still got to take advantagr of those evening and morning magic hours.

I will try different times of day, and clearer days as well. Thanks a lot everyone!!

How the subject affects the exposure & why manual keeps me worry free:
Post #47

First set the f-stop & shutter speed you need. Then adjust the ISO.
Need an exposure crutch?