Project 35 - polarising filter

The second project dealing with filters concerned the use of polarising filters. The idea was to explore the effects of shooting with a filter using both a standard lens and a wide angled lens.

I took some shots on the seafront at Puerto del Carmen in Lanzarote. Here is the two shots with the standard lens - the first is with the filter adjusted to show more detail in the sky, the second is with the filter rotated to reduce the polarising effect.

It can be clearly seen that with the polariser the sky and the sea are a deeper blue as the reflections have been reduced. The cloud definiton is also much more distinct. The poloariser is clearly demonstrated as a great way of adding depth and saturation to colours in a scene.

Using a wide angled lens with the polariser was the next objective. Here is my image:

The lens used was a 28mm lens which is not superwide. Nevertheless one can see some lightening of the  blue of the sky towards the right of the image. With more extreme wide angles this might become more pronounced and means that a polariser must be used with care with wider angled lenses to avoid creating  uneven and hence unreal skies.

The final test was to explore how a polariser can be used to reduce glare from the reflections from a water surface. For this I used a rock pool as my subject. The first image shows the rock pool with no polariser.

This image is clearly very high contrast with specular highlights in the water and no detail of what is below the surface. The extreme highlights in the water have also thrown the rocks around the pool into shadow. Now with the polariser the scene is transformed.

The scene is transformed. It almost looks as if there is no water pool. The contrast is much reduced. The lesson is clear that the polariser can be used to effectively reduce glare from the surface of water and reveal what is in the water but care needs to be used to ensure that the presence of the water is still clear.