Mist opportunity.

A bit of fog provides great picture possibilities.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about shooting in snowy conditions, as I know that this can be a problem area regarding metering accurately for many people. This week we have another challenging area of landscape (though it needn’t be), and that is metering and shooting in fog or mist.

A few days ago I woke to see mist in our valley. From our house which is placed half way up a hill, I could see the top of the hill clearly and the white mist filling the valley. This hardly ever coincides with a day when I am free to go out, but this time I was. I just needed a quick coffee and a slice of toast, then I would go and get some shots. But by the time I had finished my breakfast the mist had receded and I thought I had wasted an opportunity.

I decided to get in the car and drive up to the top of the hill on the opposite side of the valley to see if there was mist nearby. When I got up there I was surprised to see that it had returned. This happens occasionally. I once did a time lapse video of it and you can see the mist receding and returning like slow motion waves. I think the correct term for it is a cloud inversion. I messaged my good friend Matt J Lethbridge (who is here on Substack if you would like to check him out), he loves shooting in the fog and has produced some wonderful work. Unfortunately Matt was at work.

A drive around the area very soon provided quite a few interesting shots. I got above it to begin with and this showed me the areas where there were patches of fog that I could explore.

Light levels.

On those days when we have foggy conditions, we generally have a fairly low light situation. The only time when we have sunshine and fog is when we are above it, Once you are in the fog, the light levels drop and you are generally in the region of 60th at f8 for a 400 ASA/ISO film. When I am shooting foggy landscapes, I’m not usually going for a shallow focus look, I prefer as much depth of field as I can get, so I usually shoot on a tripod. When I have the option, I always prefer to shoot on a tripod because it allows me to consider the composition.

Lenses.

In foggy conditions a telephoto lens is pretty useless, you just get a very pale image. A standard lens is ok, but best results come from shooting with a wide angle lens. This is because it allows you to have something in the foreground which is unaffected by the atmospheric conditions, and this increases the sense of depth. On the day I had a 20mm lens with me, but for one shot that wasn’t wide enough. I had followed a path into some trees and found myself in a disused quarry (not unusual around here). For this shot I had to resort to the superwide option on the iPhone:

Cameras.

Who am I to dictate what you should shoot on? I prefer to use film and that can be anything from 35mm to 10x8, but as you can see from the image above, I sometimes rely on the phone. The only drawback for me is that I haven’t yet found a satisfactory way to transfer that digital image onto high quality darkroom paper. After the experience in the quarry I decided that next time I will put my super wide 10x8 pinhole camera in the boot of the car just in case.

Metering.

Metering is simple and for much of the time you can take one reading and leave the camera set at that for multiple shots, as the light will be constant for quite some time (obviously not at dusk). If you are in the woods and then in out in the open, or vice-versa there will be a difference, but if your location is pretty similar you can set it and forget it. The best metering method is an incident reading, unless you are a Zone System worker, in which case you will not be needing my advice about shooting in fog, as you have a method for any situation.

The incident method is simply to place the white cone over the light cell (see picture). Normally you would stand in the scene and point the meter back at the camera to measure how much light is falling on the meter (as apposed to what is reflected off the scene), but in fog, it doesn’t really matter which way you point it as the light is coming evenly from all sides. Once again you can set it and forget it unless the light changes significantly.

For the cows in the woods picture above, taken a couple of weeks before, I took one incident reading with my Lunasix F analogue meter and was able to take a few shots on my Rolleiflex 3.5 and a few on my Nikon 35mm without thinking any more about what the meter in the camera said, I could just concentrate on composition, and waiting for the cow to get into the ideal position.

I really enjoyed this day out and the one with the cows, I had forgotten how much I love shooting in fog and I will definitely make the effort to go out the next time the conditions are right. I might just limit myself to the super wide 10x8 and see what I can do with that.

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Andrew Sanderson January 2026.

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