Haziness in pictures???

I'm an abstract painter whose trying to take decent pictures of my work as well. I'm encountering a haziness issue with my pictures, where it looks almost like the whites are...foggy??? I'm not sure why. I am shooting raw, Nikon d800.
My possible guesses: motion on the camera when I'm taking the pictures, causing slight blur. Too low shutter speed (it's not that low though, like a 40 sometimes). To high ISO, I think I'm at 1600 or something.

Any thoughts? I've attached two images. The one on the right is the picture. The left is a screenshot of an area of "haziness".





-Wilson

Note**The haziness is visible when the image is viewed larger, which to me isn't acceptable

Looks to me that you are not nailing the focus, try f/5.6 or there abouts. Also using flash or better light to lower the ISO will also help.

More info would be useful. Maybe post an image with EXIF intact or list the lens, shutter speed, f/stop, focal length, etc.

Eyelight said:

More info would be useful. Maybe post an image with EXIF intact or list the lens, shutter speed, f/stop, focal length, etc.

Click to expand...

I get the EXIF from the image.

Scott Murray said:

I get the EXIF from the image.

Click to expand...

Odd, I couldn't read it in FF, switched over to IE and there it is.

Better light would allow faster shutter and smaller aperture and lower ISO, all of which would lean toward sharper.

It may be hard to get an exposure that provides the best detail in the whites and blacks at the same time, but I imagine some tinkering in post would work.

Try shooting outside in bright open shade or using a sheet or some sort of white cloth to diffuse the sun and get rid of hot spots. this should give you a ISO of 100-400 and a mid range aperture and a faster shutter speed of say 1/60 - 1/125 and at 25mm even 1/60 would be good. The haziness might be uneven light or hot spot.

Another point maybe....with such an open aperture DOF is smaller so if you don't have your picture at 90deg to the camera you might be getting some DOF problems.

I'd stick the camera on a tripod, set ISO to 400 or less, aperture to say 7.1, and use longer shutter.....depends on your light situation as to how long you'll need. Try to avoid standard indoor lights as they tend to put an orangish cast on longer exposures, or as said, take your work outside into better light, or shoot close to a good window, or try flash with a diffuser to allow faster shutter speeds

Definitely use a tripod, and avoid indoor lights Take the shots outside in a shaded area, too. But definitely use a tripod.

I agree with everyone above: Use a tripod, outdoor light if possible, a smaller aperture (f/5.6 or thereabouts) and low ISO (400 or below). Let the shutter speed go as long as it needs to get good exposure. If it were me, I'd set the D800's self-timer on a 5-second delay as well.
....

I appreciate everyones comments. I think I see many of the problems. The biggest one appears to be my lighting set up. My canvases are large, and I've realized that my two soft light boxes aren't enough, because the room I've been lighting in isn't long enough as well for me to get the lights far away.

Ideally, I probably need 4 soft lights at a minimum to evenly light these large canvases.

I am going to try outdoors then and see if that meets my needs. Thank you very much for the help so far.

And I'll repeat what others wrote: USE A TRIPOD and focus using Live View and zoom function AND use mirror up or delay settings so there is a few seconds after the mirror comes up before the shutter opens. It's just the addition of these small things that can make or break a picture.

Also, if you want faithful colours in your picture, use custom white balance (see the camera manual on how to do it). Ideally, you'd need a grey card, but a piece of white printer paper would do. If you don't have speed lights, go outside, as others suggested, on a cloudy day. Measure white balance off the card and then take pictures at ISO 100, f/8 from a tripod.