Help with Haze reduction in long distance shot

[FScott]

Hi all. I could use a little advice. I'm going to be shooting a satellite launch in Japan at the end of the month and I'm going to be about 1.5 miles away. This is purely for fun. I'm going to be there anyway as I have an instrument on the satellite. It is going to be around noon and it will be VERY hot and humid. I'm worried about haze and lack of contrast in the shot. I'm planning on using my 70-200L with a Tamron 1.4x teleconverter.

Now I've done some searching in the forums and on the net and from what I've read, UV filters like the Tiffen Haze-1 or the Hoya UV SMC don't do much for digital cameras since the CMOS or CCD imager is not that UV sensitive. Anyone had experience with this on a 20D? How about with a polarizer with the sun full overhead shooting perpendicular to the sun?
Can anything be done prior to pulling the whole thing into photoshop and trying to fix it after-the-fact by stretching the dynamic range and improving the contrast?

Also I'm struggling between the desire to shoot RAW images and the need for a high frame rate. If I'm going to be doing a lot of post-processing, I want to use the 12bit raw images. On the other hand I can shoot something like 60 or 70 frames at 5 fps before the buffer fills in large-jpeg mode using an Ultra II 2GB CF card.

Finally I'm planning on putting the 300D on the tripod with the remote and 17-85 and hand holding the 20D with the 70-200 and TC. Hopefully there won't be any clouds so I can preset the exposure and just try and keep the rocket in the frame.

Any suggestions would be most welcome, especially those that don't have me spending $1.5K on a longer lens or trying to get closer to the launch rail.

-- Scott.

[kfong]

Now I've done some searching in the forums and on the net and from what I've read, UV filters like the Tiffen Haze-1 or the Hoya UV SMC don't do much for digital cameras since the CMOS or CCD imager is not that UV sensitive. Anyone had experience with this on a 20D? How about with a polarizer with the sun full overhead shooting perpendicular to the sun?
Can anything be done prior to pulling the whole thing into photoshop and trying to fix it after-the-fact by stretching the dynamic range and improving the contrast?
-- Scott.
PS can improve the contrast to a certain extend, but your job will be a lot easier if you can clean up some of the photons before they reach the sensor first. Also for PS to stretch the dynamic range you will be much better off having 12 bits to begin with rather than 8 bits.
I use Tiffen Haze-2A, which remove all UV and a little of the violet. I've took test pictures of a UV lamp with and without the filter and it does make a difference.
A polarizer will definitely help but it will lose at least 2 stops of light, a 1.4TC 1 stop so if your 70-200 is a f/4 your maximum aperture would be the equivalent of f/11 and it MAY be too slow to catch a rocket launch.

Ken

[FScott]

Thanks Ken. I was going to buy a Haze-1 but after your note I looked up the 2A and it looks like it will have the best chance of anything. It isn't that expensive so I'll buy it, take it along and see how it works the day before the launch. Ditto for the polarizer. Hopefully something will help. I'm still sitting on the fence on the RAW+slow frame rate vs JPG+high frame rate. Pity the camera can't do something like shoot every 5th frame RAW.

-- Scott.

[adrianweller]

You can download an action called 'Bud's haze removal' (a search will find this) which I installed a while back on PSE using Snapactions.

As far as I understand this it does what they call local contrast enhancement. I was sceptical at first and haven't had cause to use it much but I was impressed with how it worked on some hazy landscapes. If I remember right you need to use the opacity filter so as not to overdo it.

[Pekka]

See also http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=75951&highlight=haze+removal