Without polarising (above), and with polarising (below)
Are you getting the best from your photos? If you’ve ever wondered how professional photographers get the sky to look so blue and the puffy white clouds to pop, a polarising filter is a crucial tool to enable you to do both, and more.
What does it do?
You may have heard of polarising sunglasses.
- A polarised lens helps to cut down reflections, glare, and generally serves to make scenery appear more vibrant.
- They’re especially useful on the water, as you’ll find you can now peer into the shallows no matter how bright the sun is.
A polarising filter uses exactly the same principle - but for your camera. See the results for yourself!
How do I use it?
First, make sure your camera can take a filter. If you have an SLR, this is an unqualified yes.
- On the front of the lens, you’ll find a few narrow screw threads - simple screw the filter on the front and away you go.
- Make sure you buy the right diameter filter for your lens though! 52mm and 58mm are common sizes, but lenses can be as wide as 72mm or as narrow as 40mm.
For the rest of us mere mortals, who maybe can’t stomach lugging around such a meaty piece of equipment, there may still be hope. Certain ‘prosumer’ cameras, larger than a point and shoot, but smaller than an SLR, have a hidden thread to accept an adapter, which will then take a filter. If you’re not sure whether yours does, leave a comment, and we’ll try to figure it out for you!
Even if you’ve got a small point and shoot you can just slip in a shirt pocket, you’re not excluded from the world of polarisation - you may just need to take a more DIY approach. You can simply hold the filter in front of the lens, or even use a pair of polarising sunglasses. I took the photo above by holding my sunglasses in front of my lens - not ideal maybe, but fun to experiment with.
It’s not working!
There are a few rules of thumb when it comes to using polarising filters.
- They work best when the sun is directly to your left or right when you’re composing the shot. For this reason, they’re best used in the morning or late afternoon when the sun is lower in the sky.
- Most photographers agree that midday is a bane to taking good photos, and polarising filters are no exception. When the sun is directly overhead, the polarisation will be minimal. Just wait a couple hours, and try again.
- The most common type is a circular polarising filter. Depending on the orientation of the filter, you may find that you have to rotate it as much as 90° to see the effect. Take care, because this means that if you swing the camera from landscape to portrait, you’ll have to give the filter a quarter turn for it to work.
Great. What else?
While you’re having fun with your polarising filter, why don’t you try adjusting your white balance? Depending on the type of light, the images your camera takes would, without adjustment, appear golden and warmer in sunlight, and cooler and more blue under artificial light. The purpose of white balance settings is to even out the warm and cool casts to give you true shades of white in each situation.
But why not try ignoring the rules and getting a bit creative? Try turning on the ‘cloudy’ white balance setting when you’re snapping away in direct sunlight. Since that setting gives colours a boost under dull, muted light, the effect is especially strong when you combine it with bright daylight. You’ll find the colours become so vibrant they leap out of the photo.
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With love,
Koh Samui Sunset
Filed under: (Before you go) What to know by admin
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