Caution: Over-polarization

In photography, the formula (a beautiful landscape)+(polarizing filter)=(beautiful picture), right? Well, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. Every self respecting landscape photographer lists a polarizer for every lens among their kit, as well they should.

Polarizers can be used to reduce glare on water or glass, deepen skies, and, to some extent, reduce haze. However, polarizers have a down-side.

Take this image, for instance. It was taken with a Tokina 12-24mm f/4 lens, at 12mm. A B+W super-thin circular polarizer was on the lens, and I dialed it around for maximum sky darkening. But notice that the darkening occurs in only a small portion of the sky! That’s because polarizers work only on light coming from a fairly specific angle, and an extremely wide angle lens (like 12mm) gathers light from many angles at once.

So, the moral of our story today — don’t fall into the trap of feeling you have to polarize every landscape photo you take. That’s especially true shooting with a wide-angle lens.