Sunday 1 June 2008

Andrew's Sky Question - The impact of haze on sky photographs

We had a question from an Andrew about haze and the impact it has on his photos of the sky. Andrew, we did not catch your phone number on the message you left so please get in touch again on 0118 9568 500 and we’d be delighted to talk with you further.

However to try and anticipate your question; haziness can have several possible causes. It can be caused by smoke or dust in the atmosphere, or a more general heavy aerosol content. It’s when you have large aerosol content that the light is scattered at sunset to produce the sometimes spectacular red and orange skies. I’m no photographer, but I’m told that because it scatters red wavelengths less. Photographers often use yellow filters in hazy conditions to enhance the image contrast.

Haze has an internationally recognised meteorological classification as distinct from fog and mist, which are more related to the water vapour in the atmosphere. Haze is more commonly a dry air feature. Very dense haze is known as smog.

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