Iceland One-Off - Polarization
Photographers have a few tools they can use to help enhance images if used properly. One of the most important is a polarizing filter. Simply put, polarizing filters can help reduce or eliminate reflected light off non-metallic surfaces. What does that really mean? Well, that means that it can often make blue skies even bluer (well, optimized at 90-degree angles from the sun, and watch out if you’re using a wide angle lens because the sky will do weird things in the image, but . . . bluer), it can help reduce moisture glare from plants and, most relevant here, it can help reduce or eliminate reflections in water. Is it cheating? Not unless you want to call the polarizer sunglasses fishermen wear to see fish underwater cheating. It’s all in the physics of optics.
A polarizing filter consists of two attached rings. You screw the filter onto the lens, and then you can rotate the polarizing filter to vary its effect. While much of the time, the effect is quite blatant in its extremes, other times the change is very subtle and you have to rotate the filter back and forth before you can really see the difference. That was the problem I was having during our visit to Asbyrgi . . . how much to rotate the polarizing filter. My answer became, “Make three images. One at maximum water darkness (maximum polarizing effect), one at least water darkness (maximum reflection), and one in-between. Look at them all later on a monitor to decide which is best.” That was a reasonable proposition for those particular images (doing that is not always possible), but it meant that I kicked the “degree of polarization” decision-making can down the road. It wound up that even on my 27-inch calibrated monitor, it wasn’t so easy to choose (or even see) which is the best image.
The first image was made by rotating the filter to get the water surface as dark as possible, meaning the least amount of reflection possible for the scene. That is usually what I prefer, so it’s a good place to start. In this case, there was no avoiding some reflection, which is good because that’s what I was hoping for . . . but not too much. If the water had gone totally clear, I suspect I would have made 4 or even 5 exposures to vary the reflections.
The second image was made by rotating the filter by 90 degrees. That orientation was confirmed visibly by maximizing the brightness of the water - rotating the filter too far so it darkens again, and then rotating it back to least effectiveness (i.e. brightest reflections). In the image below, you can see there’s more reflection of the rocks in the water, but also notice that the mosses on the rock look a bit duller. Polarizing filters often help in color saturation of subjects, in this case by removing glare from the sky from vegetation that may reflect it. Turn the polarizing effect off and . . . the vegetation dulls a bit. For me, this image is a reject for that reason - it’s lost a bit of life to it.
The big question for me comes with the third image, which was made by setting the polarization half-way between the above two extremes. Some, but not all of the color richness has come back in the mosses and plants (possibly correctable through enhancing color saturation if used to gentle effect), and the rock reflections in the water are a bit enhanced from the first image (which is what I was hoping for), while still retaining the sub-surface penetration to the rocks on the pond bed (which was what I was hoping for). There are also other very subtle differences that are really only visible when you flip back and forth between the first and third images on a monitor, things like tonal differences where the rocks meet the water, and apparent shape differences in how the rocks on the hillside appear to be lit. This is all caused by differently oriented rock faces that are affected differently by the different polarization setting.
Thus the conundrum remains. Which is better? The first or the third? I’m realizing that I really have just kicked the can down the road. It isn’t any easier to make that decision here than it was in the field.
Oh well!
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