It’s hard to imagine an atmosphere more dramatic than one that is completely filled with fog, which is exactly why photographs that are taken in fog – especially thick, blanketing fog – stir up so much emotion and all of us that get the chance to see it done well.

Unfortunately, because of the way that fog plays with light and plays with our perception, trying to pull off a perfect photo in fog is never as simple or as straightforward as more traditional photography may be.

If you are serious about learning to master capturing perfect photos in fog, regardless of whether it is as thick as pea soup or as light and wispy as smoke on the air, you’re going to want to pay close attention to all of the tips and tricks we are able to share with you below.

Tips and tricks that will make you a better photographer in the fog

The very first thing you’re going to want to do to get clearer, crisper, and better-composed photos when it is foggy out is to switch your lens from the auto focus function to the manual focus function, and really work to dial in each and every single shot that you take.

  1. Autofocus is definitely one of the modern miracles that a lot of us photographers take for granted because of how accurate and impressive it can be, but manual focus is the only way to achieve the kind of clean and crisp photos you are after when the fog inevitably disrupts autofocus from working the way it was intended to.
  2. Secondly, you will want to increase your exposure compensation by at least one positive exposure value. This is going to dramatically improve the amount of light that you are able to pull in during a single exposure, and that’s going to allow you to capture the haunting appearance of the fog without washing out the actual subject of your photography at the exact same time.
  3. You should always be shooting your camera in RAW if available, but when you’re doing so in the fog you want to make sure that you have your photos being saved in this format so that you can tinker away with white balance during the post processing. This guarantees that your fog looks like fog, and not like a blurry mess.

Recommended Photography Kit

These three tips above will completely transform your photography in the fog alone, but when you combine them with the rest of the tips we are able to include you really going to be creating something special.

Tripods are always going to give you a much better picture simply because they eliminate the shakes and tremors that inevitably happen when we all shoot freehand. You want to use a tripod when shooting in the fog for sure, regardless of whether or not you are capturing landscape or portrait style pictures.

At the end of the day, all of these tips and tricks are going to go a long way towards helping you improve your photos in weather conditions that other photographers may not be all that comfortable snapping shots in.