[Schraubstock]

Here is an example. It was not an overly cool day and the heater in the foreground was not blazing and yet the warmth coming off it rising was enough to create some pretty severe heat shimmer. The law of physics at work.

Greetings

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Last edited by Schraubstock; 11-01-2014 at 04:24 PM.

[Tighelander]

Groovy!

[Sagitta]

Yep, heat distortion. This is why astronomers don't use their telescopes from inside heated buildings to look out at the night sky -- the gradient between the warm room and the cool night air causes distortion where the light travels from denser (cool) to less-dense (warm) air, much the same way light bends when it hits the (dense) glass of a prism.

This can even happen simply by taking the camera from a cool environment to a warm one, or vice versa. The air will start swirling inside the lens and this is what you wind up with as an end effect.

Its *really* noticeable if you take your camera from air conditioning to a hot, dry environment. (If its hot and moist, you just wind up fogging your lens).

[Tighelander]

I wonder how often this effect has been used intentionally? Anybody know of samples?

[kkoether]

I get it a lot with the old Vintage Hydro's that run straight pipes on the exhaust.