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Your Best Friend for Fall Photography, The Circular
Your Best Friend for Fall Photography - A Circular Polarizer
Nikhil Nagane
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I am writing this article on the first day of Autumn season, which starts my favorite season to photograph in the Adirondack mountains. Vivid array of colors on trees and the ground below, a nip in the air and most importantly the end of bug season. What is not to like?
When it comes to photographing the colors of autumn, one of the challenges I face is being able to capture the vividness of the fall foliage without the distracting glare. Leaves have a shiny surface which leads to them reflecting the sky just like a water surface or a metallic surface do.
To help you counter this challenge, a simple solution is using a circular polarizer. The reflected light from the surface of Figure 2. Use of a Circular Polarizer has reduced the glare of the sky, resulting in richer, more saturated colors. leaves is polarized in nature. Most of this polarized light can be filtered out using a circular polarizer.
Let us look at an example observing the effect of a polarizer on fall foliage.
In figure 1, notice the bright areas on the tree in the middle . The reflected light prevents the underlying foliage to be seen through, leading to duller colors. In contrast, in figure 2, you do not see the sky reflecting in the foliage. This was achieved by using a circular polarizer. Result is an image with greater intensity of colors, lack of distracting glare which is more desirable to me.
Figure 1. Highlights in the foliage of the
middle tree reflected from the sky.
Figure 4. Use of a Circular Polarizer has eliminated the reflection. As a photographer, you will need to decide whether you like the reflections or not. A circular polarizer is also useful to cut through the haze or fog around the foliage, which again results in acquisition of more vivid fall foliage. However, one needs to be careful with the use of a polarizer. The orientation of the filter will depend on the direction of the subject, and the orientation of the camera itself. For example, if you change the orientation of your camera from landscape to portrait, you will have to turn the polarizer 90 degrees as well. A circular polarizer will act similar to a neutral density filter, adding a couple of stops of light to your frame. This will mean you will have to adjust your exposure to counter the lower amount of light reaching the camera sensor. Circular polarizers are also more useful when the sun is up in the sky or in overcast conditions. A polarizer will not work well during early morning or late afternoon due to the low angle of sun. Also, a polarizer does not work very well with ultra-wide lenses. Figure 3. Reflections of the sky are
evident without the use of a polarizer. On an ultra-wide lens, a polarizer may create dark areas within the frame.
Sometimes, reflections on a surface may be more desirable and using a polarizer may eliminate them. Following example shows the difference a circular polarizer makes. Figure 3 is taken without a polarizer and figure 4 is taken with a polarizer. Without the polarizer, the camera captured some reflections on the leaf, which lead to less vivid colors. However the wet rock in the background was able to reflect the surroundings in it. These reflections are taken away in the second image, by the use of a circular polarizer.
While it may be subjective, the image captured without using the circular polarizer is more desirable to me. The wet rock, reflecting the fall foliage and sky adds a lot to the image. Many times, I will find a midpoint somewhere between full effect and zero effect of the polarizer to fine tune the reflections depending on the scene.
If circular polarizers are so great, why limit its use to your main camera? You can buy small polarizers made specifically for your cell phone too. I use a jury-rigged version of such a filter, which was made using an old phone case, an old circular polarizer and a lot of instant glue (figure 5). It works really well with the rotating filter and results are fantastic!
Figure 5. A Circular Polarizer has been affixed to a phone case, allowing the use of a Circular Polarizer with a cell phone. Figure 7. Using a custom white balance gives a more accurate rendering of the fall colors in this scene.
Figure 6. Shot with Auto White Balance, the camera has chosen to filter out some of the
magenta tones.
Bonus tip for fall photography - Don’t depend on Auto-White Balance
The computer inside our cameras determines the right white balance for an image by analyzing the pixels in the frame. It will try to remove any magenta or green cast from the image. Fall foliage scenes can be full of vivid colors such as magenta, purple, red etc, which will often confuse the camera. This may result in an “auto-white balance” set such as to negate the magenta cast in your images leading to duller fall foliage. I always try to tinker with the white balance during postproduction by adjusting the color temperature and tint. Give it a try sometime. Following is an example, where the first image is “auto-white balance” which was set by the camera (figure 6), followed by the image with my “custom white balance” (figure 7). It is a subtle yet effective difference. Result is a more accurate and more desirable color palette.
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