Filters

[tegan]

For Tired Iron and Travis, the Singh Ray circular polarizer exposure loss is 1/2 an F stop.

Tegan

[Travis]

Well... from looking at their website.. they only seem to have two polarizers.....

their "warming" polarizer is spec'd 1.33 fstop

http://www.singh-ray.com/polarizers.html


their "gold and blue" polarizer is spec'd 2.5 fstop

http://www.singh-ray.com/goldnblue.html

[tegan]

Well... from looking at their website.. they only seem to have two polarizers.....

their "warming" polarizer is spec'd 1.33 fstop

http://www.singh-ray.com/polarizers.html


their "gold and blue" polarizer is spec'd 2.5 fstop

http://www.singh-ray.com/goldnblue.html

They also have a straight, regular polarizer.

Tegan

[tomorrowstreasures]

Disadvantage with a UV filter is that in combination with a polarizer, it can often cause vignetting with a wide angle lens. As a result, a number of photographers are keeping a polarizer on for almost all shots rather than playing with taking a polarizer or UV filter on and off.

Tegan

This was shot with a 28-105mm and shows exactly what tegan is talking about.
(Ignore the fact that this image has not been fully proofed and the blue tint - i was playing)

[danalive]

Hi guys,

I've read this thread, and despite having already purchased my filters, what are the Cokin filter classed as? That is, are they the cheap ones people are talking about here... If so, i'm hoping my resulting photos are not going to be impacted drastically!

Thanks,
Dan.

[Yisehaq]

Hi all,
I am planning to buy CPL mainly to use it to shoot car races in the middle of the day (with strong african sun). I have tried to take several pictures and they always are over exposed or underexposed when I try to play around. Even if I got a good exposure it will be only part of the car. Especially when the car is white it gives me alot of problems. For this reason I am planning to buy CPL. Will that work? Earlier on the thread I think I read the sun should be horizontal to the camera. If I am not mistaken. And in my case it will almost all the time will be around 10am-1 pm that I need to shoot.Any advice?
Thanks

[Marko]

The horizontal thing is to avoid reflection which is something else a polarizer does. In your case you are using it to reduce contrast so forget about that.

It will work so long as you ALSO understand basic exposure. A white car against a bright sky - a dark skinned man against a very dark wall are all scenarios that will fool your camera with or without a filter. Hope that helps
Marko

[Yisehaq]

Thanks Marko,
Will gray card help in this situations? Or anyother methods? I meter in the camera is totally fooled as you said. The other problem is that all cars are not white and the same metering sometimes works for different colored cars.
I am struggling to get it.

[Marko]

In a nutshell - any scene with a variety of tones and not too bright is normal.

In a nutshell - any scene with mainly dark of tones is abnormal - and you'll likely need to reduce exposure.

In a nutshell - any scene with a mainly light tones abnormal - and you'll likely have to increase your exposure. So when you shoot a sky that fills most of the frame - the camera meter says " hey sooo bright let me reduce exposure to make the reading normal". so everything else in the scene is underexposed. the remedy is to increase the exposure.

You should be able to SEE this (the results if they are good or bad) though in your viewfinder after you take the shot.

To practise - choose a spot under a shady tree or something with normal brightness range (Ie NOT in a bright shaft of light)

- shoot a white sheet that fills the frame - see the results
- shoot a dark sheet or something really dark that fills the frame - see the results

- shoot something with mixed tones - see the results.

THAT's how you learn exposure.

You need to forget about the tools for a sec...and understand what the camera does with basic scenes exposure wise and then more complex scenes exposure wise.

THEN - deal with the tools.

A greycard is amazing but impractical in many situations. Sure put it in a scene while you are practicing..

The magic is not in the tools - it comes from understanding how the camera will render a scene. It takes practice but getting too hung up on the 'tools' takes away from the general understanding of what is going on.

In terms of the racecars - if they are going around fast, you have no time to fiddle with exposure. So...if the lighting stays the same..(.a big cloud overhead) you can shoot manually based on a normal taken without the cars. But if the light keeps changing you're better off on aperture or shutter priority.

How 'off' are your exposures anyway?

Maybe you should start a new thread and post some results - might be easier to figure out

Hope that helps..
Marko

[Yisehaq]

Thanks Marko,
I will go and practice. I will see what the outcome and start a new thread may be. If I don't improve. But Again I am very much grateful to your help.