Your Call?
Which of today’s four featured images do you like best? Why?
If #1 …
If you have a favorite image of a bird made in the fog, you are invited to shoot me a JPEG via e-mail. Please size your JPEG at 2400 pixels on the long side and less than 600KB.
If #2 …
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No Need to Be Scared of the Fog by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
A New YouTube Viedo
Sit next to me as I do a second edit of my first round keepers from a very foggy morning photo session at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Then scroll down here to learn a ton about photographing birds in the fog.
What’s Up?
It was foggy here for the past two mornings. I went out and made some good images anyway. Yesterday morning I had a young Little Blue Heron on the pier railing that allowed me to approach within seven feet. What fun! Of all my super-telephotos lenses, I had the one that offers the closest focus in my hands. Good thinking.
Today is Monday 8 December 2025. It poured overnight, the first significant rain in more than a month. It is just before 7:00am as I type and at this time, it is usually getting quite light. But not today — it is cloudy black outside. That said, I will surely head down to the lake at some point. After that, I have tons of work to do. Whatever you opt to do, I hope that you choose to have a wonderful day.
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This image was created on 6 December 2025 by yours truly at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working from the front seat of my SUV I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel. ISO 1600: 1/500 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 7:56:14am on a foggy morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Image #1: Mottled Duck drake |
Correcting a Rookie Mistake
Though I do not think that you will see the EXIF in the video, I made the first few images at f/8 after failing to notice the left-over aperture — The camera had previously been on the 400-800 G lens. That mistake had me working at a relatively slow shutter speed and a higher ISO. All negatives. When I finally realized my mistake, I was able to work at a much more forgiving shutter speed: 1/500 second.
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This image was also created on 6 December 2025 by yours truly at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Again, working from the front seat of my SUV I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel. ISO 1000: 1/640 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 8:08:47am on a foggy morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Image #2: Great Blue Heron in the fog on The Perch II |
Work Wide for Bird-Scapes
In the video, you will see images of this bird made at 840 and 1200mm. None of those include the beautiful marsh grasses. The video shows several images made much wider with either the bare 300mm f/2.8 GM lens or the 70-200mm GM II lens. So what’s the lesson: work the subject by using different lenses and/or different focal lengths. And be sure to use both horizontal and vertical formats.
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This image was also created on 6 December 2025 by yours truly at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Standing on the pier, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter with the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel. ISO 2500: 1/2500 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 8:44:56am on a foggy morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Image #3: Cattle Egret in flight |
Removing the Yellow Color Cast from the Plumage
While doing the video I mentioned that I noticed that the white plumage of the Cattle Egret flight image had a yellow color cast. I used several masks in Adobe Camera Raw to eliminate the color cast and in addition, added a bit more definition to the white feathers using the Clarity slider in the Masking feature. In Volume III of the Digital Basics IV Video Series I introduced and discussed a variety of ACR mask selection options including Subject, Background, Sky, Brush, and Linear Gradient. I the last two volumes I will cover creating Radial Gradient, Object (beyond amazing!), and both Color Range and Luminance Range masks.
The more I use and experiment with the Masking feature in ACR the more neat tricks I come up with.
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This image was also created on 6 December 2025 by yours truly at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Standing on beach south of the pier, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter with the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel. ISO 2500: 1/2000 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 8:49:11am on a foggy morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Image #4: Sandhill Crane pair courtship jousting |
Running Away from the Action!
Because of the low light, foggy conditions I went with the 300 and the 1.4X TC instead of the hand-holdable 200-600 to save 4 clicks (1 1/3 stops) of ISO when needing a faster shutter speed. When the pair began courting, I was not able to zoom out so I headed away from the shoreline as fast as I could. With Image #4 I just managed to avoid clipping anything but I did add a bit of canvas on three sides (all but the bottom frame-edge).
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This image was also created on 6 December 2025 by yours truly at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Standing on the beach south of the pier, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter with the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel. ISO 2000: 1/1250 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 8:08:47am on a foggy morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Image #5: Sandhill Crane calling |
Exposing to the Right in Foggy Conditions
In every image in the video I added from 1 2/3 to more than two stops to the exposure suggested by the camera’s metering system. Remember that there is no “exposure compensation” per se in Manual (exposure) mode. To see whether you are exposing darker or lighter than the exposure suggested by the camera’s metering system, you need to look at the analogue scale in the viewfinder that shows the + or – value (usually in third stop increments).
Why do you need to add a ton of light when working in the fog? Because the fog is almost always lighter than the subject and thus will mislead the meter into under-exposing. With Sony’s Zebra technology, I increase the ISO until I see at least a few Zebras on the sky or the background. This ensures a good exposure for the subject. And, I used the same approach with the light-toned Cattle Egret and wound up adding more than 2 stops of light to the metered exposure.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
#4 as the interaction is wonderful!
I really like #4, the sandhill cranes courting — such an unusual image. I would have chosen it, fog or no fog.