Fog on Lens Removal

[jackdlm]

You must be reading and laughing - and believe me, I'm laughing at myself.

Last year I shot the remaining scene for my film on a couple of boats and at a beach. It was our second attempt - on the first the sea ate my camera. Needless to say I wanted to get it done.

The day went through nicely, even though we unintentionally beached the boat, it worked out well for us and I shot some really nice stuff. However, there was one point when fog appeared on the lens and annoying I only noticed it in post. I was using a water-proof pack on my camera (so to not destroy the camera with the sea water) and I decided to keep it on on the beach because it blocked out the wind, and even though we've re-dubbed the scenes anyway, at least we could match the ADR to the original shot footage.

Anyway here are some screens of the shots which have fog on the lens.

I have absolutely no idea how I would go about removing this or limiting it down in post, I fear it's avoidable, but I don't want to cut the shots out. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[grinner]

OUtside of adding contrast, you're looking at a reshoot with a clean lens.
You can see it's haloed int he middle so feather a garbage mask so you are not making the edges to dark/contrasty in the process.

 

[wheatgrinder]

add more fog to the rest of the scene? Foggy days at the beach are common.. just an idea..

 

[jackdlm]

OUtside of adding contrast, you're looking at a reshoot with a clean lens.
You can see it's haloed int he middle so feather a garbage mask so you are not making the edges to dark/contrasty in the process.

I tried changing the contrast, didn't too much for it this is without a garbage mask (which is something I've not done before - but will give a try).

add more fog to the rest of the scene? Foggy days at the beach are common.. just an idea..

That is actually a possible idea but I fear it'd be fairly difficult as the camera's moving almost all the time and the fog wouldn't be moving unless I had it all tracked, and it's a long scene...

 

[Dreadylocks]

That is actually a possible idea but I fear it'd be fairly difficult as the camera's moving almost all the time and the fog wouldn't be moving unless I had it all tracked, and it's a long scene...

Unfortunately if you can't re-shoot it, then it will most likely cost you a lot of time to fix. (I think wheat's suggestion is probably your best bet.)

I'm sure most folks on this board have a story about needing to spend hours and hours fixing one sequence or shot that was screwed up or not perfect. It's just what you've got to do if you want it to be good in the end.

 

[Zensteve]

I can't think of any clever ideas, off the top of my head, to help with that.

Kudos for finishing up filming your project, at least. I remember your threads from earlier, that culminated in you dropping your camera gear into the ocean. There's a lot of people who'd have called it quits right there.

Good luck fixing it up, best you can. I'd like to see the finished film, when it's finally done.

 

[chilipie]

I tried changing the contrast, didn't too much for it this is without a garbage mask (which is something I've not done before - but will give a try).

It's not going to work without a garbage mask or matte of some sort - if you boost the contrast for the whole shot, everything changes by the same degree. The fog is making that area of the shot lower in contrast and brighter, so you need to make the same area darker and higher in contrast in post.

I don't know if you'll be able to get away with it on every shot, but some combination of the matted contrast boost, extra fog and colour grading should give you something fairly decent looking.

 

[FrostBlue]

This is going to be difficult to fix,you could try the above mentioned methods, but you dont have enough detail information in the foggy parts to recover the footage. So you are gonna have to make the rest of the frame look like the foggy bit. Dunno if this works for you...

Best option , reshoot...

 

[jackdlm]

Kudos for finishing up filming your project, at least. I remember your threads from earlier, that culminated in you dropping your camera gear into the ocean. There's a lot of people who'd have called it quits right there.

Good luck fixing it up, best you can. I'd like to see the finished film, when it's finally done.

Thanks a lot, and I'll be sure to let you know when it's finished.


I really appreciate all the suggestions. I've been trying the garbage mask but to be honest AE isn't my strong point. I see exactly how it works, but I need to blend the upped contrast on the fog, to the rest of the shot which doesn't need a contrast change, but I'm not sure how to blend them.

Here is my efforts. The first is most effective, but the rest I could just see it going nowhere.

[edited my post and then wouldn't let me save the edit unless I removed the images]

Unfortunately a re-shoot is now impossible. Anybody want to donate their skills?

 

[jackdlm]

 

[Will Vincent]

with your mask selected, press f and adjust the feathering, which will put a gradient on the alpha channel the width you set it to.. that way instead of a sharp edge, it will blend smoothly.

It's still going to look a LOT better if you either add more fog or reshoot.

 

[Ernest Worthing]

+1 on the add more fog option.

 

[Dreadylocks]

Yeah, you're not going to be able to remove that fog. Listen to Will, feather your mask and add fog to the outer parts.

It's your only hope.

 

[jackdlm]

Only problem with adding more fog as I said is I'll have to track it for LOADS of shots. If I added still fog, it'll look terrible because it'd obviously move with the camera, thus not looking like real fog.

Thinking about ditching the second shot, that's tooooo rough. And I could cut the third. Just messes around pacing issues. We'll see.

Thanks for the help guys, I'll try adjusting the feathering.