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took a drive up to Mt. Baker on Sunday, was disappointed to find that the road to Artist Point is still closed - i heard someone say there was still 20 feet of snow up there! judging by the amount of snow remaining in the Bagley Lakes basin, i can believe it... anyway, since i couldn't get up there, i made do with what i could get at the lower elevations...
Bagley Lakes...
the waterfall on Galena Creek, next to the road to the ski area....
the obligatory shot of Mt. Shuksan... no reflection this time, but the clouds were kinda neat...
I have to agree, all very nice shots. Especially working in harsh mid day sun. Nice clarity in the water. Were you using a polarizer on those lake shots?
Bob, Artist Point is much higher up, and the view of Shuksan is different. The last shot was taken from Picture Lake, which is where my "October Reflection" was taken as well.
Leia,
yes, i had a polarizer on... makes for wonderful contrast between clouds and sky, though it didn't darken the sky a lot in the Bagley Lake shots because i was pointing almost 180 degrees from the sun...
Okay. I have a polarizer (multicoated circular B+W) sitting in my B&H Photo shopping cart, to purchase for my trip to the desert next month. You gone done and made me do it. Didn't you? LOL.
I have some for my 'regular' lenses but am going to splurge and cover the wide angle I bought last year, too.
You probably already know all this, but just in case - Be careful using a polarizer with an "ultra" wide angle. The sky can vary substantially from side to side due to the dramatic change in angle of view with respect to the sun position. Ask me how I know
Mike, you are right. That is why the one in my shopping cart (just below the itchy finger) is the extra thin one made specifically for wide angle lenses. it is also why I hadn't bought it yet. It isn't all that cheap. *blush*
Mike, you are right. That is why the one in my shopping cart (just below the itchy finger) is the extra thin one made specifically for wide angle lenses. it is also why I hadn't bought it yet. It isn't all that cheap. *blush*
Leia,
the extra-thin design is intended to help prevent vignetting with WA lenses, which is a different problem altogether. what Mike's talking about is the fact that a polarizer's effectiveness varies depending on the angle relative to the sun. it's most effective when you're pointing perpendicular to the sunlight, and the effect grows less as you move toward 0 degrees or 180. an ultrawide lens takes in enough field of view for that change in effectiveness to be visible in a single frame. it shows up as a noticeably darker portion in the sky, with the sky getting lighter as the polarizing effect lessens. it's a real problem if you're trying to shoot panos...
Oh shoot. I didn't read anything on that in the reviews on the 77mm. Rats. I hope it isn't too big of a problem. Not after what I will be paying for it. THanks for the heads up guys.
Oh shoot. I didn't read anything on that in the reviews on the 77mm. Rats. I hope it isn't too big of a problem. Not after what I will be paying for it. THanks for the heads up guys.
you won't find that sort of thing in reviews, as a rule... the reviewers are usually only concerned with things like build quality, price, customer service, etc., etc... and since it's the sort of thing that affects ALL polarizers when used with WA lenses, it's not something most reviews of a specific brand would include.
if you're using, say, a 17mm lens on a crop body, it won't be too bad, because a 17mm lens on an APS-c body is equivalent to a 28mm on a full-frame, and that isn't wide enough to really pose a big problem, though you may notice some variation in the darkness of a blue sky from one side of the frame to the other even at that focal length. where it's really a problem is with a UWA lens on a full-frame body like the 5D, or when shooting panos. i find that even my 24mm is wide enough for the effect to show up on my 5D, but it's usually not so bad that it really detracts from the image...
Rocky's explanation was beter than mine, but sometimes a visual explanation works even better. I've attached a simple cartoon picture using my own 14mm lens (28mm equivalent). Hope it comes across.
It has an angle of view of 75 degrees. As you can see, if I stand at right angles to the sun the polarizer darkens the "normal" exposure from 1.5 to 2 and back to 1.5 stops across the frame. You can also see that the problem could be worse if I had stood so that one side of the frame had been at the 90 degree point.
And that isn't considered an ultra-wide lens. The problem gets much worse with Olympus' widest lens which is a 7mm with a 114 degree angle of view. For that lens polarizers are pretty unusable for darkening the sky on sunny days. They still work for reflections, however.
Mike, your 14mm is wider than you think... on a 1.6x crop body like a Canon 50D or Nikon D300, it's actually equivalent to a 22mm, not a 28... though on your Oly, with the 4/3 sensor, you're correct, it would have an effective focal length of 28mm.
it may not be considered a UWA for the 4/3 system, or even for APS-c bodies, but on my 5D, i think it'd fall into that category!
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Be careful using a polarizer with an "ultra" wide angle. The sky can vary substantially from side to side due to the dramatic change in angle of view with respect to the sun position. Ask me how I know