Polarisers on mirrorless cameras

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 49549
  • Start date Start date
D

Deleted member 49549

Guest
Hi all,

when i use a polariser on my x100, turning the polariser has little effect on the rear screen / evf as it adjusts exposure live. Does anybody have any tips / advice? The best ive come up with is to have the sky occupy a small part of the frame so it doesnt affect exposure that much, but i am often pointing in a slightly different direction...
 
Does it have a manual mode?
 
It does, ill have a play when i get home to see how that affects preview with a polariser. But i believe it also updates the live view when in manual.
 
Rapscallion said:
Hi all,

when i use a polariser on my x100, turning the polariser has little effect on the rear screen / evf as it adjusts exposure live. Does anybody have any tips / advice? The best ive come up with is to have the sky occupy a small part of the frame so it doesnt affect exposure that much, but i am often pointing in a slightly different direction...
Click to expand...

Shouldn't make much difference. Look for the darkening relative to the foreground, that will get brighter if the camera is adjusting itself, and against clouds etc. The exposure readout will also indicate that the polariser is working.
 
Bear in mind that the amount of effect the cpl has will depend on the direction of the light in relation to the camera. If the light is directly in front of the camera, the effect will be less pronounced than when it's coming from the side.
 
Hmm, I think I am with the OP. Got a chance to take some early morning shots today and was looking through the live view screen on the X-Pro. As I slid the ND Grad filter up and down it seemed to be compensating the view as I did it.

Solution was to do a good estimate or hold 1/2 down shutter button.

No time to look fully now but any clever chaps care to explain (or at least debunk my view)?

Edit: Ah, I was in Av mode so it would react to let in the right light. Note to self, get back into Manual mode again.
 
Last edited:
You can see the colour in the sky change and the contrast shift, you can just watch the exposure meter too, it'll be giving you slowest shutter at strongest point of polariser.
 
Unfortunately not many blue skies recently for me to test....
 
Rapscallion said:
Hi all,

when i use a polariser on my x100, turning the polariser has little effect on the rear screen / evf as it adjusts exposure live. Does anybody have any tips / advice? The best ive come up with is to have the sky occupy a small part of the frame so it doesnt affect exposure that much, but i am often pointing in a slightly different direction...
Click to expand...

As an early adopter of EVF equipped cameras I first ran into this years ago. Depending upon lighting conditions and how the camera works it can be next to impossible to see what effect the CP is having... so all you can do is take your best guess and position it and / or take multiple shots whilst rotating it.

I first mentioned this on another forum years ago and got abused by a moderator who'd obviously never used an EVF equipped camera. Anyway, Googling may lead anyone who's interested to technical descriptions of the workings of various EVF systems but as far as I remember the gist and the problem is that some manufacturers set the EVF's to be nice and bright across the frame and constantly adjust accordingly... and that's fine most of the time and of course what the EVF displays in this particular instance could be a lie but the end shot will be the truth including what effect the CP has.
 
Definitely not a problem with my Sony EVFs, except where the angle of the sun, in relation to the camera, is such that the CPL will have little effect anyway.
 
Blue skies back (:)) so had a play round with manual metering and the polariser on, no difference, just goes slightly darker, lighter, darker, but always settling back to the same exposure / darkness of the sky.

If the sky is only a small part of the frame, and isnt blown out, i can see the effect, but otherwise, not a chance...:(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top