Long distance telephoto

[pwagner]

With the 100-400 L on a 10D, I think I'm limited by air pollution when taking pictures of things very far away. Is there anything that will help? Various filter advertisements seem more like "snake oil" than anything useful.

Here's a shot of the Farallon islands taken from the Golden Gat Bridge. I think it's outstanding considering that the islands are 30 miles away. (I wouldn't even bother to point my Minolta Dimage 7i (200mm) in the direction of the Farallons!) I'm a "bird person" and my brother notes that "you'll need a heck of a lot bigger lens to catch birds on the Farallons"! :-) I'm thinking that more magnification is useless without getting rid of the atmosphere. A boat would be the best way to get closeups.

Toughts on image improvements? Is it just hopeless?

http://homepage.mac.com/pwagner650/Misc/Farallones.jpg

[Fried]

The only thing that comes into my mind would be IR-Photo.

[Longwatcher]

A polarizer lens would help a bit to cut down on a bit of the haze, but short of the 1200mm with a 2x installed on a 10D you ain't going to get any birds from 30NM unless they are Hollywood Pteradactyls with 30ft wingspans. (Note: you might detect a California Condor with that setup at that range, but it would still be only a few pixels in size)

Also wait for cold clear day. That way haze and pollution will be minimized.

IR filter will also help with the haze, but it has it's own problems at that range.

A UV haze filter on top of the polarizer may also cut down the haze a bit more, but the cold clear day will do more.

Just my experience,