One of the bits of kit I made sure I took on my recent trip was a polarising filter. Its the only filter I regularly use whether for professional shoots or for fun.
If you have ever had a pair of polarising sunglasses you’ll have noticed how much more vibrant colours are and how more defined things like clouds look. A polarising filter is doing the same thing for your camera!
So they are great for:
- landscape photos where it helps maintain the colours of sky and colours of vegetation etc. It can be quite a saturating effect which you can tone down by adjusting the filter or afterwards in processing
- eliminating haze and unwanted reflections – eg in still, shallow waters it can enable you to capture what’s in the water. This will make your results look crisper and more detailed
- scenes in very sunny conditions where the sky may not appear as blue in your images as you are seeing. On overcast days you may not be able to see much difference apart from enhancing the texture of skies – which you could do in post processing
The most common and affordable form of polariser is a circular one that screws onto the front of your lens – you simply turn the filter until you see the effect you want. They work best when you have the sun to one side of you.
But they are not helpful in low light as they are reducing the amount of light coming into the camera which will cause much slower shutter speeds than you may want or need.It does mean they can be useful if you do want to reduce your shutter speed
What did I use mine mostly for in Iceland?
Capturing the rainbows at waterfalls.
If you look at two of the photos I took of Skogafoss – one of the many waterfalls we got to see – you’ll see that the first image without the polariser loses the rainbow as it crosses the waterfall whereas using the polariser in the second shot enabled me to capture the whole thing. Notice also the colour of the sky.
To see this effect in real life is amazing but even better to be able to capture it!
There are lots of different brands available to buy to suit different budgets.
I use Hoya filters with my Canon but tried the Urth brand with my Fuji on this trip.
