Posting the attached as it may be of interest to some. It was taken out of the car window whilst parked and is an example of an image affected by heat from a still hot car engine. Ambient temperature was quite cool and whilst capturing the sequence I did feel warm air coming into the car from outside. Focus point was on the eye, but upon inspection of the RAW file, no depth of the image is sharp.

Hi Craig, it's not clear where the bird was in relation to the front of the car - I assume you were pointing the camera off to the side to some degree. Also bear in mind that air of uneven temperature (which causes 'heat haze' type effects that deteriorate image quality) can happen naturally in cold conditions. I strongly suspect the best conditions are when there is sufficient wind or air movement about to disperse some of that unevenness. So it's unclear if the problem was your hot engine or other natural causes. Either way, it's frustrating to have this happen, especially if you don't find out until later which often is the case.

Hi Glenn,

Taken at about a 12:30 clockface position, so lens was pointed much more toward the front of the car than out the side.

Best regards,
Craig

Hi Craig,

I have had that some scenario play out at the Western Treatment Plant, West of Melbourne.

It was a cool morning and I was outside of the car, positioned directly behind my mirror on the passenger side of the vehicle and photographing Cisticola's off to the side. A Swamp Harrier was flying directly towards me toward the front of the car, and I remained low so as not to spook the bird, shooting over the bonnet directly at the bird. My eye's aren't great, and what I saw in my viewfinder after reviewing the shots looked pretty good. I took many other shots on that day, and unfortunately all of my Swamp Harrier shots had succumb to heat haze from the bonnet after uploading to Lightroom upon my return home.

I have never done that since... lesson learned!

Cheers,
Rob.

Thanks Rob. Same location and similar scenario to yours. I have also just found one other sequence where I was close to the car and about half the images suffer the same problem.

Best regards,
Craig

Craig

Were you shooting through glass such as the windscreen?  If so then your problem is mainly the optical effect of the glass.  Auto glass is designed for safety not clarity or light transmission and windscreens are particularly problematic.

Also, did you have the car engine running whilst shooting from in the car?  The vibrations from car engines are very problematic for modern high megapixel cameras and long telephotos.  On a recent trip to africa I was usually shooting from a vehicle and managing this vibration issue was critical to sharp shots.  The vibrations may also interfere with the image stabilisation given that it involves moving a lens element or sensor at very high frequency, but not sure about that.

I have recently experienced the problem of heat haze both in my 2023 trip to Africa (very hot, approaching 40 degrees on some days in some locations) and recently on a trip to Fivebough swamp in Leeton (not excessively hot, but clearly a hot of heat reflection off the water and reeds.  Heat haze in these enviroments takes the form of wavy interference which, at the extreme, leaves objects beyond 10-20 m with a weird wavy effect (happy to share examples as I still have the raw files).  The photos are not just soft, they are completely unusable as distant objects are quite distorted.   

As you haven't shared the exif data then we can't comment on whether settings might have had any effect.  Also things like UV filters can affect sharpness (and bokeh), if you use them.  I guess what I am implying is that sharpness problems could be from any one or more of several sources to do with camera and lens settings, camera movement, lens/body stabilisation control, or environmental issues, and all need to be considered and eliminated.

Simon