Photographing the mist at Box Hill — Colin Evans Photography

In December 2022, I was driving along the top of Box Hill in Surrey and saw a beautiful scene of mist over Dorking and Brockham

Treetops and rooftops were just visible

This is how I photographed the scene

Equipment

Nikon Z6 camera

24 -70 Z mount lens

18 - 300 DX F mount lens with Nikon FTZ adapter

Poor Light

It was around 8.30am by the time I had parked at walked the short distance to the viewpoint at the top of Box Hill.
Although the sun had risen half an hour earlier, there was thick cloud cover which greatly reduced the amount of ambient light

Stability

Due to the low level of light, shooting hand held would have meant using settings that weren’t practical. I didn't want to push up the ISO, or use a wide open aperture, or a shutter speed so slow that the images were blurry.

A tripod would have been ideal, but I didn’t have one with me

In these circumstances I look for ways to stabilize the camera. At this location I was able to rest the camera on top of the Salomons Memorial, and also use a nearby bench. This enabled me to use settings that would, (hopefully), give me reasonably clean and sharp images.

Camera Settings

For landscapes I like to use an aperture of f8 to f11. This is the sweet spot for most lenses producing the sharpest images as well as having a reasonable depth of field.

Ideally I wanted to set the ISO at 100, particularly when using a 300mm lens but I had to increase it slightly for some images.,
This ISO ranged from 100 to 250 for the shoot.

The shutter speed ranged from 1/25 to around 1/200
(see final images below for exact settings)

*A selection of unedited images in the Lightroom*

Composition

I had two lenses with me, a 24-70, and an 18-300mm

The 24-70 is sharper and although I took some wide images with it, I much preferred to use the 18-300 zoomed in on a small area of the landscape.

I felt this really gave a much more dramatic look and really captured the beauty of the mist

Another composition I quite liked was the winding path at the top of the hill vanishing into the mist.

I managed to capture a lone walker on the path which gave a good sense of scale.

A small bird in flight was a lucky addition

Underxposed Images

I noticed that many of the images underexposed, particularly when I switched to the 300mm lens and zoomed in. (The best way to check the exposure is the review the histogram rather than to rely on the monitor.)

As much of the scene was white, the camera tried to adjust the exposure for a mid-tone grey, and underexpose the scene. This commonly happens if you photograph snow, where again, much of the image will be white. Check the histogram, and and add one or two stops of exposure compensation if necessary.

Underexposed image on the back of my camera
The histogram needed to be pushed further to the right

Final Edits

I was happy with the final images although it would have helped to have had a tripod.

My favorite image was one of the spire of Brockham Church above the mist with a few birds around it