I sometimes shoot a double-sequence, once fully polarized and once fully non-polarized, so I can mix & match elements if I need a different part of the scene represented each way.Create that cinematic look with these movie-inspired color grading presets to use for your next video project.Īpplying looks and LUTs-it’s the ultimate footage glow-up. As mentioned by Adrian above, common examples where I find the polarizer useful relate to anything with water or ice, specular reflections from metal or glass, and clouds or snow-capped mountain peaks that I want to “pop” against the surrounding sky. I often use a polarizer in combination with HDR to get a better grade of “feed stock” to provide to the HDR merge process. Conversely HDR can punch up the blue, which may imply that the polarizer isn’t needed for that.īut as you’ve found with the red chairs, the effect on glare (and therefore local contrast and color saturation on anything that was experiencing glare) is quite a different matter. So polarizer or not is something of a wash for that. HDR tends to even out the blue sky, which is one of the most easily seen “downsides” of using a polarizer on wide views… especially panoramic stitched scenes. I would still keep your polarizer in your camera bag and use it for glare reduction on those shiny surfaces.įerrell, this matches my experience. Notice the red chairs and compare points 1, 2, and 3. ![]() ![]() The polarizer offers a noticeable benefit in the reduction of glare and more saturated colors when creating HDR images. When it comes to glare reduction it’s a different story. The HDR merging process simply uses a less exposed image in the set to achieve saturation. Using a polarizer doesn’t help the saturation of the blue sky when creating HDR images. HDR processing of the polarized image set (left) and the unpolarized image set (right) has created similar tones in the blue sky. ![]() (both tonemapped with default settings in Photomatix) HDR Images Polarizer Left Image No Polarizer Right Image This is due to the 24mm focal length capturing a large region of sky and in this case the direction of light approaches 90 degress toward the top right. Notice the Polarizer has also created a triangular shaped blue region in the top right. Single 0EV Images – Polarizer Left Image No Polarizer Right ImageĬompare these single images and you’ll notice the polarizer (left) has darkened the sky and has dramatically reduced the glare on the red chairs. Images taken with wide angle lenses can have uneven blue skies (note: 24mm used below). Degree of polarization varies with direction of light.Ĥ. Removes reflections or glare (darkens water).ģ. Darkens the sky greatest at 90 degress to direction of light.Ģ. I started wondering, could there be a benefit in using the circular polarizer when shooting HDR image sets or does the merging and tonemapping process nullify or eliminate the polarizing effect? I decided to create two HDR images of a scene, one taken with a polarizer and the other taken without the polarizer, then compare the results.ġ. It has the ability to darken the sky and remove reflections from shiny surfaces. ![]() We are all aware of the benefits of the circular polarizer in single image photography.
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