Polarizer with Panoramas?

[william_h._wiley]

For appropriate outdoor scenery shots, I often use a polarizer. I've started

doing panoramas, but have a major problem when combining the sky portion of

multiple images.

 

When using a polarizer, the sky is often a deep blue on one side of the frame

and shifts to a lighter blue on the other side of the frame. When I combine

multiple images into a panorama, the sky portion often shows light to dark,

light to dark, etc. There is no even shade of blue across the entire sky.

 

I could remedy this using Photoshop, but I'd rather shoot it right to begin

with. Any suggestions? Thanks, Bill

[ellis_vener_photography]

Don't use a polarizer. I've had it happen too.

[jacob_brown]

"Any suggestions?"

 

You're fighting physics. Just don't use a polarizer for panoramic photos.

[SCL]

I could never get a polarizer to work with pano shots...it's just the physics of the situation. Lose the polarizer.

[david_henderson]

A polariser can't work. I don't know what you're using but would a grad system fit?

[stp]

You can't make a polarizer work in that situation. If you want to darken the sky or enhance

the contrast in the sky, do it with photoshop after you've made the pano.

[gary_anthes]

There seems to be a little bit of a disconnect here. Everyone says don't use a polarizer, but you say you can remedy the problem in P'shop. How do you do that exactly? My attempts to fix non-uniform polarized skies have not been entirely convincing.

[william_h._wiley]

Thanks for all the feedback. Looks like the consensus is to chuck the polarizer and shoot natural. I'd be curious about how people would respond to Gary's question about fixing the sky in PS. Layers and/or what else?

 

Bill

[fourfa]

if you're up for an interesting challenge in Photoshop, shoot each frame twice, with the polarizer rotated 90 degrees between shots. Blend or mask the pairs to taste for each frame, then merge into the pano. Work intensive but it IS possible to yield even-toned skies.

[kuryan_thomas]

In places like Utah, my experience is that even without a polarizer, you will see this effect.

A polarizer will magnify the effect greatly.

 

In fact, when I was in Canyonlands and Arches last fall, I could see the effect with just my

own eyes - no photograph necessary. I think it's more visible at high altitudes when there

is very little moisture in the air, and the sun is low in the sky. The light from the sun is

more "beamed" without atmospheric pollution or humidity to scatter it.

 

I took some panos in the Needles area without a polarizer. I ended up not finalizing any of

them because this effect was visible and very distracting.

[josphy]

If darker blue skies is what you're after, maybe using a graduated ND filter would be a better solution. I did some panoramas in Big Bend, and I didn't take the time to use a grad ND, but what I did was shoot RAW and then process each shot twice -- once for sky and once for foreground -- and then used masks in photoshop to layer the two together. THEN I did the stiching using hugin and enblend.

 

Anyway that is a huge pain in the butt, but it can be done (and much more successfully than I did it too); however, I would just take the time to use a grad ND from now on and that would save so much more time in the long run.

 

Here's an example of the above:

 

http://tinyurl.com/2x3qr8

[JDMvW]

You cannot shoot panoramas with a polarizer and keep a constant sky density and color. By its very nature the darkening effect only occurs at right angles (the forefinger and thumb business, remember) to the direction of the sun. Even very wide angle lens will show an uneven effect. Joseph Allen is right, the solution here is a graduated neutral density filter, but frankly, the kind of post-processing he describes may still be necessary anyhow since the darn sky is actually not a consistent field of color to the camera lens, filter or not.