CPL - Dullness to images

[Braineack]

Is this to be expected?


Matt enjoying his seats. by The Braineack, on Flickr

I was shooting in brilliant afternoon sun, so I put my CPL on. Most of the images from the day seem dull, with an overall blue cast, where there's a lack of vibrancy that I really wasn't able to fix in post.

I have noticed, when holding it against an LCD screen it won't bring the image to completely black and I see a shift in the color hue on screen. Are these $50 Tiffen CPLs, still just cheap glass? (I have one in 82mm and 76mm).

 

[Derrel]

Eliminating huge amounts of the soft, diffuse highlights that the sun brings can lead to dull, uninteresting looks. A HUGE part of what shows us "shape" and "contouring" is the presence of huge amounts of diffuse highlights on objects...polarizing those highlights away leads to the dull and boring look you see in your shot above...vibrant colors, and yet...a rather lifeless look.

I've seen this myself, many,many times. Now, on large, broad seascapes, where there is just "one" big highlight, it's often not so bad. On rivers and creeks, eliminating ALL of the diffuse highlight from the sky's reflection can literally "eliminate the water" in the creek, if the creek runs clear...the effect on a stadium full of people is going to look kind of odd...all the many,many,,many thousands of small highlights that yuor brain sees and processes are...GONE! or at least, greatly diminished...and the result is a photo that does not agree with our mental "map" of what a scene like that ought to look like.

 

[astroNikon]

Eliminating huge amounts of the soft, diffuse highlights that the sun brings can lead to dull, uninteresting looks. A HUGE part of what shows us "shape" and "contouring" is the presence of huge amounts of diffuse highlights on objects...polarizing those highlights away leads to the dull and boring look you see in your shot above...vibrant colors, and yet...a rather lifeless look.

I've seen this myself, many,many times. Now, on large, broad seascapes, where there is just "one" big highlight, it's often not so bad. On rivers and creeks, eliminating ALL of the diffuse highlight from the sky's reflection can literally "eliminate the water" in the creek, if the creek runs clear...the effect on a stadium full of people is going to look kind of odd...all the many,many,,many thousands of small highlights that yuor brain sees and processes are...GONE! or at least, greatly diminished...and the result is a photo that does not agree with our mental "map" of what a scene like that ought to look like.

ummm ... so does a Tiffen greatly differ from a B+W CPL in this regards ?

 

[Derrel]

ANY polarizer that eliminates a really high percentage of the reflection will do the same thing. It's not a "quality" issue, but rather an issue of eliminating thousands and thousands of visual clues that we EXPECT to be in our scenes. You can use a $300 Kaesman or a B+W or a Singh-Ray, or moderately priced Tiffin, or a Hoya, or a Cokin...once you eliminate a huge preponderance of the reflections that give our eyes and brain the depth clues we expect, the scene will look "different".

Sometimes "different" translates to "better"; other times, it looks lifeless, and "bad". You can see this a lot right now in scenic places like the COlumbia River Gorge, which has loads of small creeks with majestic waterfalls, and vibrant, reflective green lush foliage; if you polarize away too much of the subtle reflections...the water looks "gone", and the plants and ferns and leaves look "weird", and you can easily, easily ruin the shot by polarizing "to the maximum". We NEED at least "some" of the diffuse highlight to show us "shape" and "contour". On things that are almost below the level of the eye to pick out, such as bushes that have say, 700-1000 very small, fingernail-sized leaves, if you polarize away allllll of the sheen, the bushes look...like crap...just like green "blobs".

On an artificial turf field, for example, there are tens of millions of blades of "fake grass"; each one has a faint sheen on it...a tiny,tiny highlight...polarizing can make the turf look "odd", as in oddly un-like-it-looked-to-the-human-eye. Look at the turf striping process popular today at MLB parks...made by changing the angle of the fake grass blades en masse...or on real grass turf, by dragging a sand-filled pipe behind the mower, which bends the blades by the millions, and causes a PATTERN of distinctly different subtle diffuse highlights on the grass blades, which is what "makes the stripes" in the turf appear so prominent.

 

[wyogirl]

Eliminating huge amounts of the soft, diffuse highlights that the sun brings can lead to dull, uninteresting looks. A HUGE part of what shows us "shape" and "contouring" is the presence of huge amounts of diffuse highlights on objects...polarizing those highlights away leads to the dull and boring look you see in your shot above...vibrant colors, and yet...a rather lifeless look.

I've seen this myself, many,many times. Now, on large, broad seascapes, where there is just "one" big highlight, it's often not so bad. On rivers and creeks, eliminating ALL of the diffuse highlight from the sky's reflection can literally "eliminate the water" in the creek, if the creek runs clear...the effect on a stadium full of people is going to look kind of odd...all the many,many,,many thousands of small highlights that yuor brain sees and processes are...GONE! or at least, greatly diminished...and the result is a photo that does not agree with our mental "map" of what a scene like that ought to look like.

ummm ... so does a Tiffen greatly differ from a B+W CPL in this regards ?

Not really. Yes the B+W glass is better glass and will result in a better quality image, but what Derrel described is just how a CPL works.

 

[astroNikon]

Thanks .. I've never really looked closely at the few photos I have that I've used a CPL on

 

[Scatterbrained]

I'm going to have to disagree with ya Derrel. Tiffen is known to make crap filters. I've seen people sell off lenses they were convinced weren't sharp, only to find out the filter was the cause of their woes. I would suggest a decent CPL like B+W, Hoya, or Singh Ray. A B&W MRC CPL should give nice blue skies, enhanced contrast, and good color.

I think the issue here is more likely the Tiffen filter, possibly coupled with flare from the sun as most people tend to not use a lens hood when using a CPL.

 

[Braineack]

ANY polarizer that eliminates a really high percentage of the reflection will do the same thing. It's not a "quality" issue, but rather an issue of eliminating thousands and thousands of visual clues that we EXPECT to be in our scenes. You can use a $300 Kaesman or a B+W or a Singh-Ray, or moderately priced Tiffin, or a Hoya, or a Cokin...once you eliminate a huge preponderance of the reflections that give our eyes and brain the depth clues we expect, the scene will look "different".

Sometimes "different" translates to "better"; other times, it looks lifeless, and "bad". You can see this a lot right now in scenic places like the COlumbia River Gorge, which has loads of small creeks with majestic waterfalls, and vibrant, reflective green lush foliage; if you polarize away too much of the subtle reflections...the water looks "gone", and the plants and ferns and leaves look "weird", and you can easily, easily ruin the shot by polarizing "to the maximum". We NEED at least "some" of the diffuse highlight to show us "shape" and "contour". On things that are almost below the level of the eye to pick out, such as bushes that have say, 700-1000 very small, fingernail-sized leaves, if you polarize away allllll of the sheen, the bushes look...like crap...just like green "blobs".

On an artificial turf field, for example, there are tens of millions of blades of "fake grass"; each one has a faint sheen on it...a tiny,tiny highlight...polarizing can make the turf look "odd", as in oddly un-like-it-looked-to-the-human-eye. Look at the turk striping...made by changing the angle of the fake grass blades...or on real turf, by dragging a sand-filled pipe behind the mower, which bends the blades by the millions, and causes a PATTERN of distinctly different subtle diffuse highlights on the grass blades, which is what "makes the stripes" in the turf appear so prominent.

thanks for the explanation. I figured it had a lot to do with that, probably also explains when in scenes that were in shade without many spectacular things, it wasn't as noticeable:


Matt drinking a beer at the Diamond Club patio by The Braineack, on Flickr

 

[DM110]

Eliminating huge amounts of the soft, diffuse highlights that the sun brings can lead to dull, uninteresting looks. A HUGE part of what shows us "shape" and "contouring" is the presence of huge amounts of diffuse highlights on objects...polarizing those highlights away leads to the dull and boring look you see in your shot above...vibrant colors, and yet...a rather lifeless look.

I've seen this myself, many,many times. Now, on large, broad seascapes, where there is just "one" big highlight, it's often not so bad. On rivers and creeks, eliminating ALL of the diffuse highlight from the sky's reflection can literally "eliminate the water" in the creek, if the creek runs clear...the effect on a stadium full of people is going to look kind of odd...all the many,many,,many thousands of small highlights that yuor brain sees and processes are...GONE! or at least, greatly diminished...and the result is a photo that does not agree with our mental "map" of what a scene like that ought to look like.

I agree that using polarizing filters in some situations can lead to some of the issues as described here, but there is one thing to consider: CPLs only work on certain types of reflections. There are three general types of reflections: diffuse, non-polarized direct, and polarized direct. CPLs only eliminate polarized direct reflections. They have no effect on diffuse reflections as these reflections are never polarized.

Basically, using a CPL doesn't mean not having highlights, but it does mean highlights that one may want could be eliminated if one is not careful. I often use a CPL to darken a sky or "make water clear" and the model (lit by monolights) still has highlights on her as these highlights are the result of diffuse reflections (the water reflection is a polarized direct reflection of the sky/sun and the sky has a component from the polarized direct reflection of the sun which when eliminated creates a darker blue that is the diffuse light scattered by the atmosphere).

I'm also wondering about the hue shift when placed on a LCD. I can say that the B+W CPLs do not exhibit this behavior as far as I can tell. I wonder if this is the reason for the "dullness" maybe?