Remember that time I said that I thought my polarizer was dirty and I ruined basically all my shots from that particular shoot as a result? Well while I said I felt stupid, it turns out that I actually am stupid.
I went out an bought a $140 Hoya circular polarizer to replace it. But I did some outdoor comparisons (with lots of sky in them) and didn’t see much of a difference. I re-cleaned the filter, and thought, I should go and re-shoot the scenes from that day. I’ll leave my expensive Hoya here since my other one is fine. Ho-ho-ho.
As those of you more familiar with my stupidity may have guessed. The filter is not in fact dirty, it is in fact bad. Upon insanely close inspection it looks like it’s de-laminating. This was a “Cheap” $50 CPL, so no biggie, but it wasted a large part of yesterday for me. Strangely enough, the smearing it creates is much more accute on my 70-200 than my 28-70. Go figure.
Here’s some evidence of my stupidity. Check out the difference.
The Hoya actually increases contrast, even of light from the flash, so it looks pretty great. Should have shot with it, but like I said. I’m stupid.
I’ll post some shots that didn’t get mangled in a few days.