After Phil Voystock's excellent presentation on Exposure, etc last night I thought I might share some examples of what different choices can do for you when shooting fall color.
These images were shot last weekend up in Wayne County.
The first example is what a polarizer can do to allowing the color to come through while the polarizer removes the glare:
The image on the left was shot without the circular polarizer dialed in for effect and the image on the right shows the effect of the polarizer.
They were shot exactly 12 seconds apart (at 3:40 in the afternoon) with the Canon EOS 40D, the Tokina 28-70 AT-X Pro at 70mm, at f8.0 and 1/250 second and a Sunpack circular polarizer.
A more subtle effect is using exposure compensation to help saturate the colors:
The upper image is shot with what my 40D light meter said was the correct exposure at f9.0 using Evaluative metering (1/25 second) while the lower image was shot wit a -2/3 stop exposure compensation, still at f9.0 but at 1/50 second, both with the polarizer. These images are shot ~18 seconds apart just before 8:00 in the morning. While the additional saturation may be hard to pick up it is noticeable when full size images are compared in Lightroom.
Here is a better example: No compensation on the left and -2/3 stop compensation on the right:
The left image was shot ay 1/60 sec at f8.0 and the right image was shot at 1/160 sec at f8.0. These images were shot 9 seconds apart at about 5:30 pm.
In those intervening 9 seconds the light clearly changed as moving from 1/60 sec to 1/160 sec is more than 2/3 of a stop, more like 1 1/3 stops. The polarizer was used on both these images also. I used my Canon 100-400 L IS at 100mm for these images.
I hope you find this helpful. Please feel free to comment or question.
Ken
