Need Advice on Aerial Photos: I'm often asked to shoot aerial photos and for the past several years the haze has been terrible. With many shots I have no choice but to shoot in the...

plieber

I'm often asked to shoot aerial photos and for the past several years the haze has been terrible. With many shots I have no choice but to shoot in the direction of the sun. With most aerials I have to bump up the Black in Photoshop's Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) converter to get the needed contrast. However in most shots particularity those facing the sun this makes some colors (greens especially) come out garish. The attached picture is any example.

Any suggestions!!? Anyone!

PS - I've found Haze, UV, & polarizing filters don't work.
My main camera - Nikon D700 with 24-70mm f2.8
Shoot Raw, Shutter priority @ 1/2500, ISO varies between 400 & 800 to keep aperture around F5.6-8

Aerials- Edited & Un-edited

gdwsr Loc: Northern California

That haze is tough. I assume you are shooting with the window open or off or through a camera hole. the CP should help when the sun is to the side (not to the back or front where you seem to have the most problems. I have some ideas but will watch for what others with more experience with haze come up with.

If I may suggest take these images over to TopazLabs and ask Nichole what she would suggest. You might be surprised.

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

plieber wrote:

I'm often asked to shoot aerial photos and for the... (show quote)

I hope you don't mind but I did a 2 minute curves adjustment on the original portion of your image. I learned this somewhere online while reseraching how to reduce haze in photos.

In Photoshop create a curves adjustment layer. Then adjust each color channel seperately bringing the left and right points in to where they meet the graph. I am no instructor so I know this may not make sense the way I described it.

If you need me too I can try to go into more detail and maybe post some screen shots of what I am doing.

Curves Adjustment on Each Color Channel

plieber

gdwsr wrote:

That haze is tough. I assume you are shooting with the window open or off or through a camera hole. the CP should help when the sun is to the side (not to the back or front where you seem to have the most problems. I have some ideas but will watch for what others with more experience with haze come up with.

If I may suggest take these images over to TopazLabs and ask Nichole what she would suggest. You might be surprised.

Thanks for the reply. That is good question, but Yes, I do fly with the window open. I do have several of Topaz products and I once tried Topaz Adjust to some aerials but didn't seem to help. I'll look at Topaz again.

I just now tried to fix the aerial again. Not much better results.

Aerial Photoshop Try #2

plieber

RTR wrote:

quote=plieber I'm often asked to shoot aerial pho... (show quote)

Hmm, Thank you for the tip. I use curves extensively editing aerials but never with each channel. I'll try that immediately. Thanks again.

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

Good luck. Post some of your best :)

plieber

OK, here's the pix using Curves channels. It's about the same. The Curves channel allowed me to get rid of some Red/Magenta cast that Photoshop's Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) invariably puts in these kind of shots.

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

Lookin' good :thumbup:

plieber

BTW, Here is the same subject but with the sun behind. Makes for a much better shot. But people invariably want their sites/buildings shot from all sides. Unless it's noon it's hard to avoid shooting into the sun. With all the haze that prevalent these days it just makes it tough to get a good photo.

clicktime Loc: Yucca Valley Ca.

plieber wrote:

quote=RTR quote=plieber I'm often asked to shoot... (show quote)

Is this what you would like to do. It is a shadow and highlight adjustment? It gets rid of most of the haze. Ps. I havent seen you on the Hog for a while nice to see you back.

plieber

RTR wrote:

Good luck. Post some of your best :)

OK Here are some

Waupaca

Honda

BillHenry

You mentioned that your polarizer didn't work. If you are shooting into the sun or have it at your back, your polarizer will not be effective; for maximum polarizer effect, the sun must be at right angles to the direction of the shot. Assuming you were shooting at an azimuth of 90 or 270 degrees, you will get better polarization shooting at 180 or 360 degrees.

plieber

clicktime wrote:

quote=plieber quote=RTR quote=plieber I'm often... (show quote)

Thanks for the note. This place isn't as cozy as it first was.

To answer your question a good deal of the work is done by Photoshop ACR where I add a whole lot of Black to bump up the lack of contrast. But then I have to Brighten the hell out of the Raw photo to compensate for the Black added. When opened in PS I play with the Curve tool.

plieber

BillHenry wrote:

You mentioned that your polarizer didn't work. If you are shooting into the sun or have it at your back, your polarizer will not be effective; for maximum polarizer effect, the sun must be at right angles to the direction of the shot. Assuming you were shooting at an azimuth of 90 or 270 degrees, you will get better polarization shooting at 180 or 360 degrees.

I'm not sure a polarizer would help with a lot of the hazy no matter what angle I'm shooting at. For I think most of today's haze is caused by particulate matter. Indiana where I'm from has more manufacturing per capita than anywhere else. So we have a lot of particulate from that segment. I don't think filters including polarizers work with is kind of haze. I wish it did! Thanks for the advice.

krispix Loc: London - UK

plieber wrote:

quote=BillHenry You mentioned that your polarizer... (show quote)

I'm pretty sure you'll find all haze is reflections off particulates, regardless of their constituents. A CPL should work to reduce these reflections and will work best with the sun at 90-degrees. It's doubtful you'll ever get rid of all the haze this way and you'll have to do you final adjustments in PS. I would do that in Adjustment/Levels and deal with each channel separately.
It's probably 40 years since I did any serious aerial work and then it was all Black & White. I had a chart that I devised to estimate the level of haze and this determined the film processing time to achieve the contrast levels I was after. I think it's a lot simpler today when all your 'Darkroom' work is done on a computer and any errors can be easily back-tracked.