Don't Underthink A Photograph

Non-polarized sky; 50mm full frame equivalent (Click to enlarge)

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are at a place that you may never be able to visit again and see an image that you really want to capture.  In other words, maybe not a once in a lifetime image, but one that will probably never present itself to you again.  You really, really want to make the perfect image to take back home with you.  Your plans are to make a large print and hang it proudly on your wall when you return.

You want to get this perfect.  You are excited but nervous.  You set up your tripod, compose carefully, think through the depth of field to achieve adequate focus throughout the scene, set your shutter speed and ISO, check your histogram, attach your remote release and then, at the last minute, you decide that you are going to place a polarizer onto your lens so you really make that beautiful blue sky more dramatic.  You snap the shutter.

The only problem is that you are using a pretty wide angle lens.  When you looked at your captured image file on your LCD, in your excitement, you really didn't "see" what you captured.  You saw what your mind wanted you to capture.  

When, at the last minute, you decided to add that polarizing filter, what you did was, in effect, really screw up the sky instead of enhancing it.  Wide angle lenses and polarizing filters mostly don't go together when capturing images with blue or partly cloudy skies.  Why?  Polarizing filters will have no effect when pointed directly toward or directly away from the sun and have maximum effect at 90 degrees (perpendicular)to the sun.  The effect will vary between from no polarization to maximum polarization as you move from 0 to 90 degrees from the sun.  By having a very wide angle lens, part of your sky is very polarized and part hardly at all, making the sky very uneven in color and luminance.

Polarized sky; 35mm full equivalent (click to enlarge)

By underthinking when making your image, you in effect made it worse.  You must think things through carefully in order to achieve success you desire, especially in those once in a lifetime situations.

When you got home and uploaded your images from your trip you were anxious to see that one image you really wanted to print large and hang on your wall.  "Seeing" it for the first time now that the excitement has died down, on your large monitor you now see how the sky is not at all what you wanted.  Ahhh!  What happened, you are thinking?

Polarized sky at 15mm full frame equiv.; the wider the lens the worse the effect.  Here the polarization, from left to right,
is basically none to maximum and starting to lessen again by the time you reach the right side of the frame. (Click to enlarge)

What to do?  You can either print it the way it is, try to use a gradient tool to gradually burn down the sky to even it out or, if you are adept at editing software, you can replace the sky with a more appropriate one.  If you do replace the sky you will always know that what you are displaying is not how it was.  Also, I bet you never make this same mistake again!

Lesson learned:  Two of them.  Think things through carefully separating your excitement and emotions from the task at hand and, after making the image really "see" what you have captured on your LCD before moving on.

NEW! As of January 1st, I've started an Instagram feed. I'll be posting photos daily so please follow at dennisamook. Thank you. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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