Dark areas appearing on foliage as camera moves away. Distance Field Lighting?

Hello all!
I am working in Unreal 5.3. I am encountering this issue where dark areas will appear on foliage assets as the camera moves away. I am unsure if this is a shadow issue as I turned off cast shadows on a foliage asset and repainted it but the problem still occurs. It’s also the opposite you would expect shadows to behave as the dark spots disappear as the camera moves away not closer. If it’s an AO issue I don’t know how to test for it. I am using Exponential Height Fog and Sky Atmosphere in the scene. I have no raytracing enabled and turning virtual shadows off/on in project settings doesn’t change anything.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas of what to test let me know I’m desperate at this point.

EDIT: Upon a suggestion, I went to the foliage tab and turned “Affect Distance Field Lighting” off and the dark areas disappeared. However, that turns off shadows completely on the foliage. does anyone know why this is the case and how to increase the threshold?

I Could be wrong but this looks like distance field ambient occlusion being its best self!

You can find its settings in your sun, you will have to fight with it to make it look good.

Though it could be some other visual error from shadow distance or AO culling etc.