heat haze

Heat haze is the limit on long-lens airport photography in warm weather. Hot air rising off a runway or from a jet exhaust bends the light, and no amount of sharpening recovers a subject softened by it — the detail was never recorded. Shooting early, shooting higher, and shooting across grass rather than pavement all help.

Nearby in Photography

• full frame — A sensor the size of a 35mm film frame, around 36 by 24 millimetres.
• golden hour — The period after sunrise and before sunset when low sun gives warm, soft, strongly directional light.
• histogram — A graph of how many pixels fall at each brightness level in an image.
• image stabilisation — Optical or sensor-shift compensation for camera shake, allowing sharp handheld frames at slower shutter speeds.