Haze Filters

[wayn0i]

I'm heading to Vietnam next year to motorbike around the country side for a couple of weeks with a couple of mates. Im planning on taking my camera this time and I wanted to ask a question about landscape haze. Asia as most people know is particularly bad for haze and I was wondering if there is a filter or similar that can help with reducing the haze on capture. I know CPL improves contrast so will likely help but I often like to take pano's and CPL's can really make the sky look different between frames so I prefer not to use it when doing pano's.

Ive also read a couple of PP techniques to reduce haze.
1. Unsharp mask radius-50 amount -12
2. duplicate layer - blend at overlay or soft light and desaturate the layer

If you have some other variants I'd be interested to hear from you

[Laosie]

Hi Wayne,

I'm next door in Laos. We're in the middle of the wet season so the sky is clear (when it's not raining that is) and haze shouldn't be a problem. The rain clears the haze, washes the dust away and gives the scenery a lovely verdant hue. It's probably about my favourite time of year here.

Are you touring on Minsk's? North or south?

Jon

- - - Updated - - -

Aaahhh, sorry about that. I read that as you were touring in a couple of weeks time. :oops:

So if you're not planning on being in SE Asia between July - October next year you can ignore my advice on lack of wet season haze.

[ricktas]

Most of the haze (non pollutant) is light based. The Blue Mountains are so named, because from a distance they look blue. This is how we humans see things, due to restrictions in the human body. The Blue Mountains are not actually Blue, as you know. From memory it is a UV light effect, that the human eye interprets. Your digital camera does not have that issue, so you might find what you see and what you capture look differently anyway. A CPL will adjust contrast but its primary purpose is to affect the way polarised light is dealt with. It can be very useful. But if the haze is pollution, dust, smog, smoke etc in the atmosphere, there is really no way to see through it, either with your eyes, or with your camera.

[enseth]

For what its worth the "Dehaze" slider on the latest Lightroom works pretty damn well for cleaning up photos in PP.

[arthurking83]

Like Rick said Haze is basically a UV effect.
Haze filters are and have been traditionally UV filters .. back in the film days.(even then they were questionable in the later film era)

Nowadays digital cameras all(except for a very rare few) have UV filters, so haze reduction is almost built in. .. but!
.... an IR filter is most effective as a haze filter .. more effective than a UV filter!
Of course the issue then is, as long as you don't mind all monochrome images in all red, or black and white. Then there are all the other light transmitting issues that an IR filter comes with.

[mudman]

the clarity slider in photoshop RAW will allow you to adjust the amount of haze you want, or don't want

[wayn0i]

Hi Wayne,

I'm next door in Laos. We're in the middle of the wet season so the sky is clear (when it's not raining that is) and haze shouldn't be a problem. The rain clears the haze, washes the dust away and gives the scenery a lovely verdant hue. It's probably about my favourite time of year here.

Are you touring on Minsk's? North or south?

Jon

- - - Updated - - -

Aaahhh, sorry about that. I read that as you were touring in a couple of weeks time. :oops:

So if you're not planning on being in SE Asia between July - October next year you can ignore my advice on lack of wet season haze.

Thanks Jon, mate it's not until May next year and will be the Sapa and Dong Van Karst Geopark regions.

We did consider Laos, maybe for the following trip


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[wayn0i]

Most of the haze (non pollutant) is light based. The Blue Mountains are so named, because from a distance they look blue. This is how we humans see things, due to restrictions in the human body. The Blue Mountains are not actually Blue, as you know. From memory it is a UV light effect, that the human eye interprets. Your digital camera does not have that issue, so you might find what you see and what you capture look differently anyway. A CPL will adjust contrast but its primary purpose is to affect the way polarised light is dealt with. It can be very useful. But if the haze is pollution, dust, smog, smoke etc in the atmosphere, there is really no way to see through it, either with your eyes, or with your camera.

Thanks Rick I understood it was high energy light (blue light) reflecting of dust and air particles. It's an interesting point the differences between what the eye and camera sees


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[wayn0i]

Thanks for the PP tips guys


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[Laosie]

Enjoy the trip. There is some spectacular mountain scenery around Sapa and further west to Lai Chau.



For what its worth the "Dehaze" slider on the latest Lightroom works pretty damn well for cleaning up photos in PP.

I just found that as well. It's not bad at all.