Hi guys! I’m currently travelling with my family around Australia, and here we are at the Great Barrier Reef.
What Equipment to Bring Along?
Do you want to know how to turn a simple image into a amazing one? Well, there’s one simple, little trick that you need to know. One little piece of equipment that you need to have.
Highlights from this video:
1:01 Photos on the way to the Great Barrier Reef
1:53 Image using Circular Polarizing Filter
2:58 More sample images
In this episode, I’m going to show you a simple, little piece of equipment that you should bring along when you go out and visit something like the Great Barrier Reef, like we did recently. I went there with my family and we went on this awesome trip on a wooden sailboat out to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia – one of the seven wonders of the world.
This photo is just taken from my Android phone. It’s just a simple shot just to show the sail boat that we went on. Very interesting story about this boat and well worth a trip. Click here to learn more. We had a great time on the Falla.
This is a photo that I took when we were on our way to the reef. It’s a humpback whale. Some of them were breaching but they’re a little bit far off from me to photograph, this one was a lot closer.
Circular Polarizing Filter
Anyway, the lesson today is, how did I turn this simple image that I took with my Canon 60D -a consumer-grade crop sense SLR camera – into an awesome and more vibrant image? You need to use a small little equipment called the Circular Polarizing Filter.
No Filter – Dull Image!
If you ever go out to the Great Barrier Reef or somewhere where there is water, you can go from an image that has a reflection on the water and looks pretty dull, into an image where the sky is dark; the reflection is taken out of the sky (darker blue) and you can see right into the water. The image will be dramatically more vibrant and better.
With Filter – See into the water! WOW
Look how clean and light the water is beneath the sailboat compared to the first photo. Such an amazing thing. It’s like wearing a polarized sunglasses. That’s what I recommend you to do. If you don’t take anything else just take the circular polarizer; that’s all you need. You don’t need tripods or zoom lenses or a long lens, which you use for sports photography.
Just take a wide-angle lens and a Circular Polarizing Filter.
No Filter…YUK!
Here’s another example. This is a boat that was anchored when we went snorkeling just outside of Cairns at the Great Barrier Reef. This is a photo without the polarizing filter.
With Filter – Water is so much better!
And this is with the polarizer active that I took just a few seconds later. Have a look at the first photo – notice that the coral under the water is not that prominent. But in this next photo where I used the polarizing filter, you can see the prominence of the coral under the water. It’s an amazing transformation.
Here’s the Circular Polarizing Filter that I used on my lens.
To end this lesson, I want to show you this photo of me going out to snorkel the reef. It was an amazing adventure. You can see in this photo that the horizon is pretty skewed (I fixed it in photoshop afterwards) because this was my 8-year old daughter who took this photo. Before I got her to photograph me, I turned the polarizing filter ON to make sure that it would work and then I gave her the camera, jumped into the little zodiac run around boat.
Anyway, if you enjoyed this lesson about this little equipment to take with you when you go out in the water, please leave a feedback and I’ll be sure to respond.
This is Brent, have a great day!
P.S. If you like this travel photography tip, then check out my Art of Travel Photography Course.
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Hi Brent, thank you for the impressions from the Great Barrier Reef!
Unfortunately I´m about 16.000 km far away 🙁 But I stayed there and I loved it!!!!!!
I also use the polarising filter, but most of the time because of the sky. But now I´ll use the filter also especially for the water (the beautiful lakes). Cheers Petra
We live about 5000 km away but it was worth the drive and the sail. Brent
Hi Brent – I’ve seen the comment you made towards the end a couple of times now. That of:
“I turned the polarizing filter ON”
How do you turn them on? I have one and from what I can tell it’s either on (as in on the camera) or off (as in not on the camera). Colour me confused.
You got me Stuart. When I said it I wordered if someone would catch me out. What I meant was “the polarising filter was attached to my lens and was turned ON meaning it was was turned to absorb the most reflection from the sun. It’s a circular filter, and swivels around on the front of my lens, at a certain angle it’s ineffective and at another it turned ON and is mostly effective. Sorry about the confusion. Brent
LOL – thanks Brent.
As I say I’d seen other folks say it but nobody was willing to offer an answer. So thanks.
This is an excellent reminder for me. I have been thinking of doing non-digital photography with my trusty Pentax, which has been languishing in my camera bag these several years. I still have my polaroid filter for the camera. Thank you for this helpful tutorial.
Thank you Brent. Love all your tips. Petra
Love your all your tips. They are so helpful. Would you use a polarizing filter when photographing kids on the beach with sea in the background or only purely for landscape?
Cheers
Sharon
Just landscapes Sharon. Brent
Thank you for great photo tips. I totally agree that often if not most of the time equipment does matter. Recently I switched to full frame sensor DSLR from cropped frame sensor DSLR and my photographs improved big time and I will never switch back. Best Regards Nenad
Thanks Nenad. I do miss my full frame dslr but the best camera is the one you have with you.
Hi Brent what lens did you have on your 60D ??
dont have a polariser yet, been wondering on brands before purchase
so Tiffen has quality glass or plastic ??
can sure see some summertime coastal landscape capture being created this
year indeed, oh yer !!
Hi Rick. You get what you pay for when it comes to good glass filters. Spend about $100 on a good glass polarising filter. I’ll post a link soon. My lens is a 24-105 F4 lens. B
Hi Brent
That was interesting !!! I have these circular polarisers, but did not realise just how great they are, what a difference
Dust them off and use them!