Polarizing Filters for Blue Skies
A polarizing filter can boost your landscape photography and help you bring out those rich deep blue skies which you always see in travel brochures. Additionally, polarizing filters can reduce reflections from metallic surfaces, glass and water and they may be used for increasing the colour saturation of trees and foliage. For these reasons a polarizing filter is an essential addition to any Landscape Photographer's kit bag
To let you see the effect a polarizing filter has on blue skies I have included two images below. Both images were taken at the same place at the same time but they look completely different. This difference was simply due to a 180 degree change in viewpoint. The landscape image was taken with the camera facing north with the sun coming from the west and a little behind my left shoulder at roughly the 8 o'clock position
In the landscape shot above, the sky is a lovely cornflour blue which fits nicely with the colours of the landscape bringing a certain overall colour harmony to the image. However you can see that the sky starts to get darker as the eye moves towards the top left corner. This happens in areas of blue sky which are at an angle of roughly 90 degrees to the sun and is where you will always get the strongest blue skies using a polarizing filter. In my opinion this image is slightly spoiled due to the effect of natural polarization and I would have preferred it if the sky was a uniform cornflour blue. After all the dry stone dyke is the focal point of this image and the sky should act as a compliment to it rather than dominate the image
Now let us turn around 180 degrees and cross the road to where there is a Hawthorn Tree (Irish Fairy Tree). Now the sky looks completely different and is a deep blue colour. This proves that even a simple change in viewpoint can have a dramatic effect on your photos. White flowers against a deep blue sky makes a high contrast image which has punch and I have always liked this type of image. I used fill in flash for this shot and the result is a nicely exposed flower against a deep blue sky. It makes for a fresh and cool looking image which nicely reminds me of the atmosphere of the late spring evening on which it was taken
In this shot I am facing South and the sun is coming from my right at around the two o'clock position. The sky is a deep blue due to natural polarization of sunlight in the atmosphere and therefore I didn't need a polarizing filter for this shot as it would have been overkill. If the blue of the sky in this shot was weaker a polarizer would certainly help but sometimes you don't need one because nature does it all for you
Location Maps
North County Sligo
The map above shows the local area close to my home on the coast of Donegal Bay while the image below covers the larger geographical area of the North West corner of Ireland
Ireland North West
Final Thoughts
A polarizing filter is one of the most useful filters for outdoor photography and most photographers acquire one sooner rather than later. As well as boosting weak skies polarizing filters are good for increasing the colour saturation of plants and trees. If you are shooting water scenes where there is glare and surface reflections on the water then a polarizing filter can attenuate them. When shooting through glass or liquid surfaces such as rivers then a polarizer will give improved results. All of these uses make the polarizing filter one of the most versatile accessories you can add to your gadget bag
