Please tell what is going on with these photos

Here is another one.

Roberta -

To me it looks like you were shooting through glass and the camera caught some of the reflection in the glass.

The only time I get that look with my D300 is when I'm shooting through a car window (rolled up) or the window of my house.

Dave

It would be nice if you'd shrink your photos a little, they are real bandwith suckers. :)

Looks like something right in front of the lens, maybe?

Were you shooting through a glass partition?

Were you shooting into the light? It looks like good ol' fashioned glare.

Flare from chain linked fence?

Did your equipment was moved from places with different temperatures / humidity in a short period?
Sometimes you get condensation on the elements and you have to wait until it dryes

Roberta -
I've made a quick version for you. I have set W&B points in NX2 & pulled down a tad of the brightness of the shot. With the RAW file I can probably do better. You have my e-mail, so if you want to send me the RAW file - please do.
I think you have glass in front of you & that interferes.... But this might look a tad better to you....
How does this look to you?

Sorry for the size of the files.
Not shooting through glass , out in the open.
It was sunny, but the sun was to my side, not shooting into it. Had lens hood on.
Had been outside for well over one hour shooting, when these were taken so no condensation.
The orangutan enclosure is out in the open. I had the lens pointed down as he as sitting my the side of his enclosure.

Just curious if the pictures are like this when you remove the Tamaron 1.4 Tele converter.

Do you have a filter on your lens?

I think the key comment was this sentence in the original post:

This hazy look did not happen on all the photos.

Assuming that the problem is not restricted to one particular lens, and other images captured by that lens is fine, it pretty much rules out any equipment malfunction.

And any glass partition and protection filter have been ruled out.

Was it a crowded environment? If so, maybe someone's hand, finger or shoulder was partially obstructing your lens in some of the frames?

If you take more test shots with the same lens (w/ and w/out TC) and camera, and there are no problems, most likely you have nothing to worry about.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts on this. No one was close enough to me to obstruct the lens. I guess that there could have been something in the enclosure (the cement embankment?) that could have caused the glare.
I will try shots with and without the TC and see what happens.
This is the same lens I had to send in about 6 weeks ago as it kept giving me the fEE error. I sent to Nikon to look at and they stated everything was in specs, but I still get that fEE error on occasion.
Shun, can a lens go bad slowly?

Thanks

Can a lens go bad slowly? Of course it can. For example, if there is mold growing inside, the problem can get progressively worse over time and your images will look foggy. However, it is very unlikely that such problem would suddenly cure itself, unless you had moisture inside and that has dried up.

It's someones' yellow hat, in the extreme nearfield bokah. Seriously.

It does look a lot like something close to the lens just slightly in the way, like a yellow hat, or part of a fence or railing. It's easy to not notice things like that when you're concentrating on looking through the camera.

Is it the teleconverter that makes the background look so swirly? Or does the 80-200 f/2.8 do that on its own?

John, it was at f/2.8, but I think it was the teleconverter. I really am beginning to think it is something going on with the TC.
I found a couple of more pictures that the bottom half has that haze. Need to save my money and buy the longer lens !

The lens in question will not do this without the aid of some kind of obstruction, and its obvious you had something near the field of focus. See pic attached when all goes well using this lens.
Always pay attention to what's around you, and better luck next time.

Roberta, if something is obstructing inside your teleconverter, most likely the problem will appear in every frame captured with it. I would shine a flashlight thru the TC and see whether there is something inside obstructing the light path.

But most likely the problem is between the front of the lens and the subject.

The lens hood is new. I ordered the Nikon HB-7 according to what Nikon states is used on that lens. It is the barrel type hood. Prior to that I had a petal lens hood.
Do you think it could be the lens hood?

The lens hood will not cause this as its out of the field of focus

There is something between the lens and subject, possibly also flare. Any problem with the lens or TC causing this much haze would be obvious when looking through the thing.

finger? :)

The OOF yellow thingy changes location between the two images. I vote for the yellow hat scenario. It should have been visible in the VF. (Not being critical.) Let us know if you find out anything.

Camera strap?

Just out of curiosity..... why can't it be simple 'ole flare? Especially if it's not happening on every shot. I understand that no filters are being used, but a tele-converter is still another elements between the lens and the sensor and my understanding is that any other element exponentially increases your chance for flare? Some shots just happen to be at an angle that is letting light flare or leak in.

Camera strap or the finger. Definitely. Never let the strap swing around and your hand on the lens supposed all the time under the lens, so your fingers, specially the small finger, don't going to be in-front of the lens. That's the mistake most of the amateurs doing. See instruction how to hold a camera and the lens.

Thanks again everyone . It was not the strap or my hand as I was using a monopod.
Going to test it out again today.
John, you may be on to something as the shots that have this haze , the camera was angled down on the subject, not pointed straight at it.

Again, thanks everyone.

I like John's suggestion of a light leak, maybe due to the converter. Do you see the same flare in the finder, and if so, does it change if you change your position or angle relative to the sun?

Its flare. Either off the front element or via a light leak. Thats all it can be.

Mel

A prime zoom lens is constructed to allow maximum image quality: adding a teleconverter is not going to provide the same results [generally.]

You may try to rent a AF 80-400mm VR Nikkor lens and see if the long-end results are 'better' than the AF 80-200 and teleconverter combination.

Good luck.

Roberta, is the teleconverter. I took a few photos using my Canon 40D with the 100-400 L lens with the 1.4 TC attached. The TC kills the autofocus, allows less light thru, and I think mucks up the exposure.
As soon as I took the TC off the pics looked normal.

Roberta, I know I'm a bit late with this response, sorry for that.
I was still wondering, do you have any filter on your lens when taking for these pictures ( although Shun is ruling this question out ). Not because a filter would produce this effect, but maybe the lack of one would..
My reason for asking this : There seems to be a lot of blue going on in these pic's , and i guess there was a totally clear blue sky at the time ( deducting this from the colors) .
If my previous assumptions are correct, there might also have been a lot of UV-light. This can produce differend "blurs and haziness" mostly with a touch of blue or purple in it.
To help prevent this you could try a "SkyLight" filter ( slightly pinkish filter) or a plain UV filter , ruling out the cause of blur by an overkill of UV....

It wasn't me who ruled it out. In Roberta's opening post, she wrote:

No filters used.

Additionally, concerning the sun, Roberta wrote:

It was sunny, but the sun was to my side, not shooting into it. Had lens hood on.

So if it is flare, there has to be a light source generally in front of the lens. It sure does not sound like the position of the sun would cause this problem. Was there something reflecting sunlight or some strong artificial light in front of the camera? If not, it cannot be flare.

Shun, sorry for misreading your lines, i seem sometimes to be a bit 'dislectic' when reading English.
I totally agree with you about it probably not being flare by reflection of vissible light.
This is a different effect I'm writing about , UV light can cause a blur in any scene when there is a lot of it , because it is so strongly dispersed by the atmosphere. UV-light is not image-forming but spreads a haze over the entire picture ( it does so on film, but also on a lot of digital sensors, since it is often not filterred very well by the in-camera filters in front of the sensors) . Therefore I still use UV-filters when taking pic's when outdoors with blue or light overcast skies. Also some older lenses seem to be more sensitive for this effect than others, because modern coatings seem to deal better with this "hazeing - effect".
I think it's still worth it to try , if possible, and see if a good UV filter improves things ( you obviously need a good one to prevent internal reflections which would make things worse..).
I would try the difference myself right now , but where i'm living ( the Netherlands) the wether is not overly sunny this time of year....

C.P.M , you are correct in that it was a clear day, not a cloud in the sky. I did not have any filters at all on the lens.
It has been overcast and rainy for the past few days, so I have not had the opportunity to test the lens and TC again.
Thank you for your input, as it gives me something else to try as this really has me puzzled.