1. Deep blue skies<\/font><\/u><\/b> It works like this. On a sunny day find a view point that\u2019s 90 degrees to the sun. In other words you want the sun on your shoulder. At that angle you\u2019ll get the maximum polarising effect and your sky will be a gorgeous deep blue colour. The effect is far less intense with the sun behind you and non-existent when shooting towards the sun.<\/p>\n Get it right and you\u2019ll be rewarded with great colours straight out of the camera.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2. Long exposure<\/font><\/u><\/b> Now on a sunny day that probably won\u2019t be a problem but on a dull day or during the evening, you can use this exposure loss \u201cproblem\u201d to your advantage.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say your exposure is \u00bd sec, f\/22 at ISO 100. Adding a polarising filter will drop that to 4 sec, f\/22 at ISO 100 and that\u2019s the kind of long exposure speed that can add creative blur to your images. OK it\u2019s not as effective as a really dark neutral density filter but in the right lighting it works brilliantly.<\/p>\n 3. Less reflections<\/font><\/u><\/b> It may take a bit of careful positioning but when you get it right the polarising filter can drastically reduce or even remove the surface glare from things like roads, water and even wet leaves. The end result is an instant increase in contrast, punchy colours and far better photos.<\/p>\n Now you may be thinking that you could do the same thing in Photoshop so why bother with the polarising filter. Well if you shoot RAW then something like the recovery slider or the new highlights slider can help reduce glare but nothing beats getting it right in camera.<\/p>\n <\/u><\/b><\/p>\n <\/font><\/u><\/b><\/p>\n <\/font><\/u><\/b><\/p>\n 4. Cross polarised photos<\/font><\/u><\/b> Simply create a blank white document in Photoshop and then press F a couple of times to leave just the image on screen. Then press CTRL and + key to zoom in on the image, until your screen is filled with white.<\/p>\n Now take anything that\u2019s made of clear plastic such as disposable cutlery and hold it in front of the computer screen. Look through the cameras viewfinder whilst rotating the polarising filter until you see the background go jet black. Press the shutter!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A polarising filter is one of the few filters I still own and more importantly use on a regular basis. It was also the first type of filter that I ever bought but that was way back when I first started photography 25 years ago. Since then the humble polarising filter has hardly changed at … Continue reading Four ways to use a polarising filter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"polarising](\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/polarising-filter-1_thumb.jpg\" "\\"polarising")
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OK, so this is the bread and butter effect of the polarising filter and the reason most people own one. Back in the days before digital if you wanted super saturated colours or the deepest blue skies in your photos, a polarising filter was your best option. Obviously Photoshop has changed things somewhat but it\u2019s still a great thing to do.<\/p>\n![\"polarising](\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/polarising-filter-3_thumb.jpg\" "\\"polarising")
<\/a>Polarising filters are dark just like a pair of sunglasses. In camera terms they usually reduce your exposure by 2 or 3 stops of light and if you\u2019re shooting in aperture priority mode that can sometime cause issues with camera shake as your shutter speed will be 1\/4 or even 1\/8th<\/sup> its usual value.<\/p>\n![\"polarising](\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/polarising-filter-2_thumb.jpg\" "\\"polarising")
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When photographing shiny or wet surfaces you\u2019ll often get colours that look washed out or unwanted hot spots of bright light. That\u2019s when it\u2019s time to reach for the polarising filter.<\/p>\n![\"polarising](\"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/polarising-filter-4_thumb.jpg\" "\\"polarising")
<\/a>It\u2019s a little known fact that most LCD screens, like computer monitors, produce polarised light. Does that matter? Well no, not usually. However that fact becomes very useful when you get the urge to be creative with you camera without leaving your computer.<\/p>\n