This is just a little reminder, for your sake and ours: Nature photography benefits from doing things correctly. Today, we’re going to talk about shooting through windshields. As easy as it might be, as convenient as it might be, despite the fact that your subject may not permit your attempt to avoid it by opening a door or window and leaning out, don’t shoot through windshields.
Here’s the deal: While we can see through windshields with minimal negative effect, this is because the lenses in our eyes have a very small surface area – not so for camera lenses. So the light that strikes our camera lens has passed through much larger portions of the windshield, at varying angles, and light passing through glass (or any transparent substance, polycarbonate, acrylic, whatever) at an angle gets bent, just like a lens does. This means some of the light coming into your lens has been altered by varying degrees, and it’s far worse the greater the angle – this is also why aquarium or terrarium photography can have issues, unless you take care to ensure that you’re shooting straight on through the glass, perpendicular to the light path or parallel to the focal plane (the digital sensor or film.) It’s next to impossible to get straight on through a windshield, since they’re always angled up significantly and usually curved themselves.
Not to mention that the treatment of the glass to temper it also introduces a color cast, which might be increased by glare reducing chemicals as well.
So clarity will always take a hit, and the color will be shifted, and overall, you’re going to get much worse results than if you get that extra glass out of the way, like here. At the same time, you don’t have to deal with the smudges and oil streaks and residue that sits on every windshield all of the time.
So what are you not gonna do?