Looking through haze (1 Viewer)

Took my Swarovski 8.5x42 on a trip and the whole day, in fact last several days are so humid and hazy that the picture doesn't appear right, it's hard to punch through the haze, especially long-distance. I even thought there was something wrong with binoculars, they looked more clear last winter and spring.

Does lower power work better on hazy days?

Filtering out some of the blue light (the wavelengths most easily scattered) with a yellow or other warm-colored filter often helps.

--AP

In patchy fog, you can see through a few areas, and there you need binoculars that work well in twilight as the sunlight is not getting through on those days. May need to wipe the bins if condensate forms.

Other haze may be difficult wo deal with, pollution etc.

I came to the realization that the 8x42 format is OK for an all-purpose binocular but is not that good for low light conditons or hazy conditions.

From time to time I wonder about 10x50 as an all-purpose bino. Leica Ultravid 10x50 is not that much heavier than the 8x42 Trinovid I just sold. I believe it's 33oz vs. 31oz.

Anyway, it's not fog. Just typical southern very high humidity weather, with air turning blueish.

Heat related issues are something optics won't help. The colder the better for views.

Very hazy here, lately. I regularly glass a series of ridges perpendicular to the one I live on. That was actually part of the reason I bought the 12.5x50 version of my 8x32 Pentax DCF SPs not long ago.
Under current conditions, the 8x32s resolve detail and color better than the 12.5x50s. Also, with the 12.5s, CA normally visible only where the topmost ridge is in stark relief against the sky, is now noticeable between the tops of individual ridgelines, even though it's treetops backdropped by more trees, and hardly a "high contrast" situation.
This may sound farfetched, but I'm actually getting much better resolution from my dimmest and least favorite binocular, a Steiner 8x22 Safari.
I just had it out on the deck looking at a rooftop on one of those ridges, and could see details like vent fans on the roof of a building better with the 8x22 than with my Leupold Golden Ring 15-30x50 spotting scope.
I really just brought the Steiners out to see how horrible it was going to look through them compared to my higher quality optics, so that was quite a surprise.

Often times what you really want in hazy, difficult conditions is LESS magnification, not more. This is also true when dealing with conditions of heat mirage as well. When the conditions are bad, every binocular, regardless of quality is degraded in its optical performance to some degree. I find that I have three binoculars that get used quite a lot in poor viewing conditions, a Leupold Yosemite (yeah it's a cheap chinese porro, but don't knock it till you try it) 6x30, a Vortex Fury 6.5x32 and a Swift Eaglet 7x36. The Swift doesn't have quite the fov of the other two, but it does appear to be a little sharper in the conditions ETC described. The performance of Owens 8x22 Safari may well be due to coatings that tend to filter out blue, as Alexis suggested. I agree with Owen, that his experience is surprising. I have the Steiner Predator 8x22 and agree it leaves something to be desired.

etc said:

Took my Swarovski 8.5x42 on a trip and the whole day, in fact last several days are so humid and hazy that the picture doesn't appear right, it's hard to punch through the haze, especially long-distance. I even thought there was something wrong with binoculars, they looked more clear last winter and spring.

Does lower power work better on hazy days?

Click to expand...

As mist is in the visible range of the spectrum, no binocular will cure the problem. The best solution for you is to switch to some military imaging device that works in the infrared.
You may want to trade in your binocular in favor of a low-light amplification t
device such as this: (see attachment)
T