Landscape photography tip: Be careful with wide-angle lenses and polarising filters

Thursday 17 June 2021, 20:10 by Nando Harmsen | 5,210 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

A polarising filter can give your landscape photo lovely contrast and warm colours. It also reduces reflections and glare in water. But be careful with wide-angle lenses and polarising filters. The two do not always work well together.

A polarising filter gives wonderful results because it can remove reflections. This brings out the colours better.
A polarising filter works best at an angle of 90 degrees to the light source. That source is usually the sun.

The further you point towards the sun, or away from it, the less effective the polarising filter will be. Until you photograph directly towards the light, or with the light behind you. Then it no longer works.

A wide-angle lens has a huge angle of view. It can sometimes be more than 90°. And you can probably guess, that is wider than the optimal angle at which the polarising filter works. In other words, the filter will polarise neatly in one part of the photo, but not in another.

If you use too much wide angle, such as the 16mm on a full-frame camera in this example, you get uneven polarisation. This is especially noticeable with blue skies.
The result is uneven polarisation across the photo. This really stands out when you have blue sky in the photo. So be careful with this, because it is very difficult to correct in post-processing.

My own rule of thumb is that a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera is still just about possible. With a shorter focal length, you will see the uneven polarisation. If you have a crop camera, adjust the focal length for your camera, because it is the angle of view that matters.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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2 comments

Hans wrote on Tuesday 22 June 2021 at 17:33 | reply
Hi Nando. Interesting to read: ‘it’s the angle of view that matters’. I have often wondered why we don’t talk much more about the angle of view instead of the bpa? People say, for example, ‘This lens brings the lion a bit closer’. Fortunately, this is factually incorrect. Which is just as well: lions are always hungry, pushy, and uncivilized. Cows and horses are not, but they are curious; there goes your composition. With a smaller angle of view, less fits in the photo and is therefore shown larger. Right?

Regards, Hans

Ps: seen your beautiful poppy photos.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Wednesday 23 June 2021 at 11:34 | reply
@Hans:
A smaller angle of view does indeed make something appear larger in the frame. You enlarge it, so to speak, or in popular terms, bring it closer...

Why do you find lions pushy and ill-mannered? I thought that only applied to humanity in general. Lions are curious, are only hungry if they haven't eaten for a while, and are anything but ill-mannered.
Translated from Dutch.

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