Polarizing In Photography

Suitable filters for weather photography

Landscape photographers use many types of filters, some being very expensive. Luckily, with weather photography you don't need many kinds of filters. Often, only a polarizing filter is sufficient. In fact, a polarizing filter is all I use for my photography, except for photographing the sun, with which I use a neutral density filter.

Filters such as warming filters or gradient filters are little useful for weather photography. Since you don't need to see detail in the foreground at all in weather photos, gradient filters are not required.

One other type of filter that may be useful is a UV filter, simply because it will protect the lens surface from being damaged. But keep in mind that any filter will add extra reflecting surfaces to the optical path through the lens and camera.

Polarizing filters

There are two types of polarizing filter: linear and circular. These filters work the same way in that they filter out light of a certain polarization. A circular polarizing filter is useful for SLR cameras that use a mirror when light metering. A circular polarizing filter consists of a linear filter and a circular polarizer after that, to make the light circularly polarized and therefore its intensity won't change after subsequent reflections. If in doubt which one to use, use a circular polarizing filter.

In this picture the sea has been polarzied you can see the difference as the picture on the left is dark but the on the right is a nice blue.