What to do about haze?

[LazyPhotographer]

<rant>
In the morning, we have marine layer haze... sometimes it burns off quick, other times it lasts all day long. Sometimes I drive inland, just to get to get a blue sky - but then I'm gambling with mountain haze or desert haze... yadda yadda.

I have nice B&W uv/haze filters for all my lenses. But that doesn't always help, lots of times it does somewhat. A polarizer isn't always real convenient - oh, it could help if I'm shooting raptors in flight, but is a pain when I need to come back down to the earth real quick for birds in trees or bushes. </rant>

I'm starting to think I should stack 2 or 3 uv/haze filters and see if that helps. Would that be totally insane? Seriously, does anyone have any suggestions or tips to help me here? I'm looking for a way for my flight shots to not be so grainy/hazy. What to do, what to do?

Signed,
Hazed in Southern CA

[robertwgross]

I'm not sure that there is any elegant solution.

I was shooting in Southern California two weeks ago, and a few of the digital images came out a little hazy. I just cranked up the Contrast in the editor, and that worked. The natural tendency is to over-adjust the Contrast, and then it looks fake. I will adjust the minimum necessary to overcome the haze or smog.

---Bob Gross---

[Scottes]

UV/Haze filters block light at a particular wavelength or above. So stacking 2 or 3 won't do any more than the first.

Here's a great article comparing various UV filters: http://www.photo.net/equipment/filters/ - it's doesn't cover haze really, but it will give you an idea of how they work and which ones actually *do* work.

[dtrayers]

Haze both reduces contrast and reduces detail in the image.

There isn't much you can do about the detail, but if the contrast (or lack of) isn't too bad you can try to apply the Unsharp Mask filter at a fairly low amount (about 25 - 40%) and a fairly high resolution (70 or so).

[robertwgross]

Here's a great article comparing various UV filters: http://www.photo.net/equipment/filters/

That is a good link about filters. I wish the article went on to explain color intensifier filters.

---Bob Gross---

[LazyPhotographer]

Thanks guys!

I think I'm going to replace my filter with the Tiffen 1 or 2..