There is one exception to this approach, and that is the use of the polarising filter. As yet, editing software cannot reproduce the effects of this filter in its entirety, since it has many and varied uses: darkening blue skies and increasing contrast between that and clouds; removing reflections from non-metalic surfaces, such as water, glass, paintwork and foliage (useful for shooting landscapes), and as a neutral density filter, since it blocks the light of all colours of the visible spectrum.
For all the benefits, it does have it's drawbacks (isn't that always the case?), as it sucks up to two stops of light entering the camera, and it can look quirky when used with ultra-wide angle lenses, since one side of the frame can be polarised whilst the other side is not. The filter can also impart a cool feel to the image, and some warming may be necessary to create a more pleasing photograph to the eye.
Therefore it is necessary to use this filter carefully, as too much can ruin a shot completely. However, today I am out in the bright, clear sunshine of late summer/early autumn, armed with the filter in question, and determined to do just that: overdo it. I am trying to produce over-saturated colours - by no means natural - purely for pictorial effect, and I achieve that with this image of a beach hut on the seafront of Poole Bay, Dorset. I rotated the polariser for maximum effect, and managed to turn the blue sky an inky black, which shows how easily it is to create something that cannot be undone at a later stage.
24-70mm f/2.8G AF-S Nikkor. 1/640 second at f/5.6. + 0.67 EV compensation. ISO 320. Polarising filter
© 2012
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