Archive for the 'filter' Category
One trick pony
Just about the only thing I seem to photograph these days is water. We are still waiting for proper snow (half of what we got on Monday is now gone) so the scenery is not looking photogenic by any means – unless grey and dreary is your cup of tea, that is. So once again, I drove to Österhocklan and expected to see even more ice than last weekend, and got it. It was a sunny day and the sun was shining on the creek, but instead of lifting up the scenery it just made it worse (for me, anyway). The contrast between the dark water and sunlit snow is a nightmare to handle, so I didn’t even try, just looked for the shaded spots and/or waited for a moment for the sun to disappear behind the trees. And when I found a subject, on with the B/G filter and colorise. At least I’m finally getting value for money with the filter… I tried with the normal polariser as well, but there really is such a thing as too much polarisation – the contrast was once again too much between the snow and the water. Since the B/G filter doesn’t remove the glare like the normal polariser does (it just colours it), the contrast is much easier to handle. It’s a fair question to ask why I insist on using a polariser at all, and I don’t really have any reasonable answer. I just simply don’t like glare, unless it contributes to the image. And I rarely think glare contributes to the image. To be honest, I think I’m close to over-using polarisers, so I will have to make a concious effort to cut back a little. But as long as we don’t have a lot of snow, my only consolation is playing with the B/G filter!
It was a cold morning, not cold by normal January standards but cold by the winter 06/07 standards. -9 degrees centigrade down by the creek. I loved it!
No commentsBlue and Gold
Another long, boring weekend ahead. Looks like the only photo ops I can find these days is moving water, so I drove to the Österhocklan creek, armed with a Cokin Blue/Yellow varicolour filter (otherwise known as a Blue/Gold polarizer). I don’t normally like gimmick filters but it felt like a gimmick was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits while I wait for the winter to arrive. I’ve had the B/G filter for years, but I’ve hardly ever used it – seemed like a good idea at the time, but I never really found any application for it. But now I’ve discovered that it can be quite nice with water and ice images which otherwise would be very greyscale.
Here’s a little series to demonstrate the effect of polarizers. Image P is shot with a normal polarizer. N is “naked” – no filters. B is the B/G polarizer with a blue basis, and G is with the same filter rotated 90 degrees for a gold basis.
When I arrived at the creek, I was surprised to find it almost iced over. I guess we’ve had more below zero temperatures than I thought…
I quickly changed my plan to look for interesting ice formations instead of interesting white water formations, and ended up with a very nice photography session. A blue day with a golden lining!
4 commentsSlow
I got my ND8 filter this week so of course I just had to try it, despite the snow-slash-sleet-slash-rain that was falling from the sky. The Stormjacket works fine for the camera, and shooting water means that the camera is pointed down so the front of the lens is protected from the drops.
All I can say is that long exposures are not a problem anymore. It was a relatively dark day so I think I could’ve gotten 15-20 sec exposures without the ND8, but the point was to test it so I used it stacked with the polarizer anyway. The longest exposure I tried with was 25 sec but sharpness becomes a serious issue; I’ve no idea how people get sharp shots with slower shutter speeds. I think I will stick to those 15-20 secs, that’s enough to give me the kind of effect I am looking for without sacrificing all too much with the sharpness.
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Something else that is slow is my computer. I got an extra 512 MB RAM and stuffed it in… and it didn’t show up. So I thought maybe it’s broken, and tested by removing the older modules (2×512 MB). No problems with the new module. So I put in the old RAM again and booted up – only to discover that my computer still thinks that it only has 512 MB. I tried with swapping the modules, tried with each one individually, tried different memory slots (only the first slot seems to work alone – or the other two are broken. Which there weren’t before, because it still showed 1 GB after I inserted the new module the first time). But no matter what, my computer is now operating with half a gig instead of the 1.5 GB I was hoping to have. Not much fun when editing large pictures!
Gonna have to start surfing the tech forums… Maybe there’s some magic way to tell the PC that is has extra memory. Yeah and pigs fly.
5 comments