I was asked to shooting something last weekend. A $0 job down by the harbour, anything to get away from the desk. I thought, hm, that Tiffen Polariser has been sitting in the kit bag for years and never been used, time to give it a work out.
It was late afternoon on very cloudy autumn day so I have no idea why I thought a polariser was going to achieve anything. Even sillier the only way to rotate this filter on my EX1 was by putting my finger on the glass and pushing it around. Waste of time really, it made no difference but couldn't be bothered taking it off and the show was about to start. After the show shot some more footage just tp make all the hassle of getting to the place maybe worthwhile.
Got back home, took the pola off and oh my, that's a lot of grease on it, hope that didn't.....
Looking at the footage I think it did, yuck, washed out and soft. Good thing there was no money on the line but even so, what an idiot. Never try anything new unless you can tolerate an epic fail. I thought maybe a bit of tweaking would help, added Vegas's Color Corrector and tried upping the Saturation, yuck. Tried upping the gain, now, wow, we're cooking. Dialled down Offset, kept an eye on the waveform monitor and the Asus ProArt monito, did some more tweaking and BINGO.
![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZnSVVbOqb28/default.jpg)
I think if I was shooting set pieces under controlled lighting I'd explore diffusion in front of the lens in depth, it really does seem to take the edge off video. I dial Detail well down in my camera but it still doesn't give the same result.
Bob.
It was late afternoon on very cloudy autumn day so I have no idea why I thought a polariser was going to achieve anything. Even sillier the only way to rotate this filter on my EX1 was by putting my finger on the glass and pushing it around. Waste of time really, it made no difference but couldn't be bothered taking it off and the show was about to start. After the show shot some more footage just tp make all the hassle of getting to the place maybe worthwhile.
Got back home, took the pola off and oh my, that's a lot of grease on it, hope that didn't.....
Looking at the footage I think it did, yuck, washed out and soft. Good thing there was no money on the line but even so, what an idiot. Never try anything new unless you can tolerate an epic fail. I thought maybe a bit of tweaking would help, added Vegas's Color Corrector and tried upping the Saturation, yuck. Tried upping the gain, now, wow, we're cooking. Dialled down Offset, kept an eye on the waveform monitor and the Asus ProArt monito, did some more tweaking and BINGO.
![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZnSVVbOqb28/default.jpg)
I think if I was shooting set pieces under controlled lighting I'd explore diffusion in front of the lens in depth, it really does seem to take the edge off video. I dial Detail well down in my camera but it still doesn't give the same result.
Bob.