Shooting Near Water

[Christian Tanner]

hey pat!

just to drop a lign about polas that might help you:

polarizers come in two models: directional and omni-directional. omni-directional polas work – no matter what direction you mount them on in front of your camera. problem with omni-directional polas is, they are LESS powerfull than directional polas.

directional polas have only one, proper direction. if mounted wrongly, they don’t do anything at all.
what you do with a directional pola is to watch a reflection through the pola and twisting it (45° to a reflection or the sky if there is none works best). easier to do that before you mont it on your camera just by looking through it by eye. especially if your matt box trays (if you have any) don’t twist.

directional polas in most cases take a stop of your exposure.

polas noticably increase sky contrast if it’s cloudy.

as suggested before, polas reduce reflection best on a 45° angle to the reflecting surface. flat on, they don’t work at all.

hope that helped…

tanner

[Carelton Holt]

Hi Pat,
A polarizer filter will definitely improve the haze situation. You will even see higher color saturation as well. It is important to get a polarizer that is compatable with your lens (circular or linear). It seems strange, but not all polarizers yield the same results with all lenses. If you have a matte box, a 4×4 polarizer from Schneider optics is expensive, but yields an awesome result… but is not quite as convenient to operate as the screw on types. B&W and Hoya make great screw on models. If at all possible, try to buy one from a shop that will let you try before you buy to assure a good result with your camera. Good luck!

[Orin Jenkins]

Didn’t read the other posts, but this is my solution that works most every time:
Shooting on or near water for best color/contrast:
Early within 2 hours of sunrise
Late within 2 hours of sunset plus 30 minutes after.
Proper lens hood for the focal length, preferably metal for best black inside hood
Polarize — use the correct Polarizer for your capture medium
UV and/or 1A
Keep your back to the sun as much as possible
If you must shoot with a tripod physically in saltwater, either rinse immediately with fresh or use coated wood. Saltwater loves to eat your aluminum.
If shooting from a boat watch for hull ripples in your foreground.

That’s it off the top of my head.
Say Hi to Puyallup from Florida.

We shoot with anything and the list keeps growing.
oj@thephotocollege.com

[Bob Cole]

Great suggestions.

Also, watch out for the continuity problem. Because the apparent color of water can change rapidly, it’s vital to get interesting cutaways, to avoid the disconcerting effect of cutting from water that’s light blue to water that’s dark blue.

Apparently water-color-continuity problems gave even Spielberg a headache, with some movie about a shark.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Pat Ford]

Hey…thanks you guys.

You advice answered my questions. Thanks, especially to those that understand our peculiar problems with water and light in the Northwest.

And to Orin Jenkins who wrote from Florida…as you wish, I will send your greetings to Puyallup and a hello to Humptulips.

Thanks all!!!

[Bill Barton]

Mark,
Great advice! I also wanted to say “Thumbs-up on BIRTHRITE”. I Saw it twice and think that you and Randall did a great job. Keep making Movies!
Bill Barton