Ahoj! This is as Zdenka Darula here. If you are wearing polarizing sunglasses on a
bright sunny day, then you know what the polarizer can do. Circular polarizer
filter can bring dynamic effects to your photos. It can bring those rich colors
and dynamic contrast and many many more other things. It is very valuable to many
professional and amateur photographers. That is why we will be talking about
this filter in today's video.
Polarizing filter is usually the first filter landscape photographers buy because it cuts out the haze and it lets less
reflected light to the camera's image sensor. That's why the photos look so
clear and they are very rich in colors. We all know those dark blue sky photos
with clouds popping up. Well, how do we use it? When do we use it? When do we not
use it and which one do we buy?
Let's start how it works. Once you screw the circular polarizing filter on your
lens all the way, you will be able to turn the filter to make the effect
stronger or lighter. It will work the best when your lens is pointed 90
degrees away from Sun or light source. Just a general rule of thumb. Just make
this. If you are pointing to the Sun and you turn your hand like this... where your
thumb is pointing, that's where you get the strongest effect. So it's going to
work very nicely when the Sun is very high and bright during sunrise and
sunset it will not really happen because it's more like 180 degrees. There will be
very little or no effect just because it is not 90 degrees. Now that we know what
it does... when can we use it?
When you are new photographer just starting out, you will probably run into
the situation when you are standing inside of the building trying to take a
shot through the window, but you realize how hard it is because of light streaks.
Well, CPL filter will actually remove such light streaks. Another one. You're at
the wedding trying to take a photo of a bride and groom. They are sitting in a
car and you are trying to take the shot through the window, but there is a
reflection blocking the shot. Again, this filter will eliminate it. Or you're
trying to take photo of a river or lake and you want to see through the water
you want to see at those rocks, but there is a reflection on the top. Well, this
filter will help you eliminate those reflections. You can completely or
partially cut out the reflection with the polarizer on. You can either adjust
it yourself and get the results you like like this or you can take two shots. You
can take one photo with the polarizer fully on with the full effect and take
maybe another photo with no polarizer whatsoever, no filter. Upload them to
Photoshop, blend them together. Grab the best from each image to get very
stunning result.
CPL filter can help your landscapes really pop by darkening the sky to make
them look a little bit less washed out. It can be very beneficial especially
when you are shooting in the middle of the day when the Sun is very high and
very harsh. Do you like black and white photos? If you take photo of that very
dark blue sky, convert it to black and white, it will add texture to those areas
which would be normally blown out of highlights. It will create bigger
contrast between foreground and background. If you've got up early in the
morning to take the beautiful shot of sunrise, but haze is in a way. CPL
filter will certainly help. What is haze? It is moisture and
particles in the atmosphere that reflect light. And since we already know that
this filter manipulates reflections, haze is a type of reflection, it can be
certainly reduced. Another situation. Rain is on the way. It hasn't reached you yet,
but it's far and it's in the shot. Well, you can certainly fix that as well.
However, however, if you try to do that during sunset hours, it will destroy some
of the nicest sunset colors. Because sunset colors come from light reflecting
of particles in the air and smog. And since this filter, CPL filter blocks
reflections, it will also destroy some of the best sunset colors.
I know we all use Lightroom and Photoshop to adjust the saturation in a photos, but
you can also reach saturation with this filter. If you happen to photograph a
rainbow, spin the CPL filter the opposite direction. What it might do, it might
increase the glare in the photo, which means that the rainbow will be more
clear and more colourful. I photograph many weddings and I run into a lot of
outdoor ceremonies which are in the middle of the day even the Sun is a very
harsh and it's right on the top and everybody there is baking at 35
degrees. It's just very hot. And in those cases though, CPL filter will help you to
eliminate that shine in the hair and on the skin, those blown out highlights. It
will bring it down, so it is very useful in such situations.
Air shows are very popular to many photographers and a lot of photographers
shoot in different directions. Well, if you are using that filter and you want
the sky really dark blue, you need to position yourself at a degree where the
effect will actually work. Also, it will help because it will cut down 1.5 stops
of light. That way, you can slow down the shutter speed. So for example, if you are
taking photo of an aircraft with propellers, the propellers will be kind
of blurry so it will look like it's spinning, like the aircraft is actually
flying. Another great scenario of taking photos with CPL filter is cars. It's
gonna take the reflection away to make the color and car pop. Just be careful if
you run into cars with polarized windows. Bring the effect down or remove the
filter completely because you want to avoid those crosshatch patterns. Now that
we reviewed all situations where you should use CPL filter, it is time to also
talk about situations where you should not use such filter.
You shouldn't use polarizer when you happen to have light with a different
color than usual. It can be for example that orange red color in the evening
during sunset hours. At those times keep it off your lens. Because water is
transparent and if you want to take nice photo of it, it helps if there are
droplets of water where the light is shining on them. If you keep the filter
on, it will take the shine away and the droplets will be less visible. So keep
the filter off again. CPL filter is not going to do any good in low-light
situations. When you need to get the most light to your camera as possible. In
those situations you need to use tripod or lower the f-stop or use wider
aperture or just completely remove the filter. Do you love creating stitched
panoramas? The problem with the filter is that it's not going to create even
effect on your photo. So the sky will be darker, light and darker. So when you stitch
those photos together it will be very crazy. The pattern will be very crazy.
Light, dark, light, dark. So don't use the filter in those scenarios. The
effect will be less the further you are away from 90 degrees. Especially if you
are using wide-angle lens. Because you will end up in what's called bending.
Very dark blue sky, lighter and dark blue. In such scenarios just try to avoid
shooting with wide-angle lens.
Since there are many filters in different stores, which one do you buy?
When you type in online polarizer, you might actually end up with the linear
polarizer, so you might want to type the whole thing circular polarizer. To make
your life easier I actually included link to such circular polarizers in the
video description below, so feel free to check them out.
Since filters can get expensive, especially if you have many different
lenses with many different sizes, here is what I did. I use EF lenses where it says
here 77 diameter, 77mm. That's the size of the filter you should
buy. So I got this filter for this lens. Then I also use 50 mm EF lens
which I use for my DSLR cameras and also for Canon EOS M50. So here I bought
filter for this lens and the diameter here is 52 mm. To be able to use
this filter on a kit lens 15 to 45 mm which came with Canon EOS
M50, I simply bought step-up ring which is 49 to 52 mm. So I attach
those two to Canon EOS M50 and problem solved.
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You know I read it all and I always respond and I am looking forward to
seeing you in the next one. Cau.... Ahoj...