Long Lens Heat Distortion And What You Can (and Can't) Do About It

Recently photographer Steve Perry (from backcountrygallery) published a video on a subject many wildlife and nature photographers know very well – heat distortion.

We love Perry’s videos – they are always educational and he speaks from a lot of experience. This time around he chose a subject which we have some experience with – heat distortion – an effect which happens when the sun hits a large flat surface between the photographer and the target. This effect is typically magnified when using a long telephoto lens and shooting a far away subject (more space for the heat waves coming from the ground to effect your image).

As always, Perry has some interesting remarks from his own experience – for example did you know you can get heat distortion when shooting on ice? Shooting over the hood of your hot car is also a bad idea if you are looking to avoid heat distortion, but at the end of the day there is little that you can do apart from shooting when the sun is less powerful (i.e. early mornings and afternoon).

You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid. We have a special page dedicated to Perry ‘s videos which you can find here.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.