There’s only one portion of the light spectrum that we can see. But it comes in so many variations and reflects off of so many interesting surfaces. It never gets boring. Kind of like watching waves roll onto the shoreline.

I woke up early the other morning on my friend’s boat. I’ve included a photo I snapped while standing on the back of his boat in Marina del Rey:

In the above photo I used a circular polarizer filter to cut reflection and get the blue of the sky to “pop.” Here’s a shot that illustrates how using the circular polarizer allowed me to also get the blue sky to pop and accentuate the contrast of the white clouds and palm trees. If you’re going to be shooting with clouds in the frame, consider the polarizer. It improves the cloud definition.

A lot like polarized sunglasses, a polarizer “magically” cuts down on the glare. It’s great to use while up in the mountains, because glare is a major factor at higher altitudes. Use it when the sky’s blue, but not on an overcast day.

A circular polarizer screws onto the front of your lens, just like a normal filter. You’d use it in place of your normal filter. Once it’s screwed on, you look through your camera viewfinder, then turn the circular polarizer until it’s creating the effect you want – like making the sky more blue, or the clouds more defined. Although the circular polarizer stays screwed onto your lens, it still rotates, allowing for you to adjust the amount of polarization.

The circular polarizer is also effective when shooting through glass. It helps to reduce the glare, just like polarized sunglasses.

A circular polarizer is also effective to use if you’ll be processing your photo as a black and white. By using the circular polarizer you will get more contrast between the sky, clouds, and greens. You can try for some Ansel Adams-like effects!

Also check out:

“Using the Nikon Slim Polarizer” on Moose Peterson’s blog. He has a detailed explanation of how to use the polarizing filter.