Beyond Phototips

Camera equipment is sensitive to moisture, and dust. I’m going to deal with a couple of ways in which you can keep your equipment safe from high levels of humidity that could damage your lenses and certain parts of your camera body. We’ll deal with dust in a subsequent post.

Why High Humidity is bad for your equipment

Fungus grows in between lens elements and under the lens coatings. Once it gets started, it is a pain to get rid of, and causes soft spots in your photographs, being the equivalent of having a fingerprint on your lens. This is one case in which the ‘prevention’ keeps the lens doctors away.

Fungus or Mould thrive in dark, humid places where there is little, or no movement of air (sound familiar? look at where you store your camera equipment). Very often camera equipment ends up in drawers, cupboards, or basements; all of which are dubious places to store them. Remember that keeping your camera in storage for too long is also a recipe for fungal (and mechanical) disaster. Lenses and cameras need to be kept in use and exposed to light and fresh air from time to time. A camera or lens that is used well, and stored correctly is most likely to see many years of successful picture-taking.

Lenses and camera equipment are optimally stored at a relative humidity (RH) of around 35% to 45%. A good rule of thumb to figure the optimal RH to store your equipment at, is to look at it’s optimal operating humidity range, and half it. For example, the Canon EOS 5D’s operating humidity range is 85% RH or lower, so a good indicative range to store it would be between 35 and 45% RH.

Humidity Range – Why Low Humidity is bad for your equipment

Remember, that you could also run into problems from keeping your RH levels too low. All camera lenses and bodies have a number of moving parts – gears, sliding thingies, and rolling thingies – and they’re all lubricated with a light machine oil. Keeping your RH too low could dry up that oil quicker than usual, making these parts wear out sooner, and work sluggishly. I also think that the rubber on the camera tends to harden quicker in dry air.

There also seems to be another kind of mould that affects camera equipment at very low RH levels; I’ve only come across this in one place, so I don’t have much info on that. If you have some information that you could add, please do leave it in the comments.

Solutions

So what’s the solution? The cheapest option is to use your camera as frequently as possible; The exposure to light, especially UV light kills the fungus. While this is not a problem for active enthusiasts, those who store their cameras for any length of time need an alternative.

Alternative 1 – Sunlight / UV Radiation

Put your camera out in the sun from time to time. Remove the lens (or you could end up with a hole burnt in your shutter or some other part), filter, body, etc, and put them all out in sunlight for a while. If you manage to work this into your monthly camera care routine, you should be fine.

You could also try what some photographers do: use a UV lamp in their storage area. Why? Because prolonged exposure to UV (Ultra-Violet) radiation kills or retards fungal growth. Do remember to take your UV filters off if you decide to try this method out, because they are designed to keep UV rays out of your lenses. The lens coating blocks UV light too, to an extent.

Ok, so you’re exposing it to light on a regular basis, but what if you live in a region that is perpetually humid? See alternative 2 for an answer.

Alternative 2 – Dessicants

As always, there are the cheap options, and the expensive options. In either case, you’ll most likely need a Hygrometer so that you know what the relative humidity is, at any given time.

Cheap Option – Silica Gel

Silica-Gel is the cheap way out. It is a dessicant (something that de-humidifies the air in the vicinity of your camera equipment).

You can buy Silica Gel either as crystals, or sometimes as tiny spheres. Most often you find them in porous sachets so that they don’t disperse among your equipment. If you decide to go with Silica Gel for your cabinet, remember that you should get the indicative variety
. They are blue when they’re fully absorbent, white-ish when they’re partially full of moisture, and pink when they’re fully saturated. You can “Re-charge” your Silica Gel at this point.

You’ll need a container like the Dry Storage Silica Gel Dehumidifier to store it, yet create enough air-flow through the crystals. You’ll also generally need lots of silica gel. But remember that it lasts a long time, and needs no further investment.

Remember, that keeping saturated silica-gel in your camera storage could do you more harm than good by actually releasing more moisture into your storage.

Expensive Option – DeHumidifiers

As with everything, there has always got to be an expensive option. De-Humidifiers usually use mechanical means to reduce the relative humidity of the air around it. De-Humidifiers are usually quite effective, and can reduce the time you spend on modifying your camera’s environment, but they generally draw significant amounts of electricity.

You could also use your Air Conditioner to reduce the ambient humidity to a safe level for your camera equipment. This is because Air Conditioners dehumidify as they chill the air, leaving a comfortable storage humidity for lenses and cameras.

Summary

To wrap up, remember that the best maintenance/fungus prevention plan for your camera involves your regular use of the equipment. Regular use keeps the lenses and camera body aerated and exposed to sunlight, thus killing fungus.

If you dont use your camera often, make sure that it is stored in a well ventilated area with an ambient humidity range of 35%-45% RH. Also remember to take it out often and expose it to sunlight.

If you live in a humid part of the world, you could try one of the other two options mentioned above: Chemical Dessicants or De-Humidifiers.

If you have had experience with fungus and humidity affecting your camera equipment, and have found an alternate solution to those mentioned above, please do leave a comment so that our readers may benefit from your experience.

EDIT: I recently came across these two very interesting articles on Amazon.com. I’m going to be investigating their potential use in photo equipment storage, but here you go anyway.

• Adorama VacuPac Dry Box, Small (3.5 lit.) with Built-in Hygrometer
• Adorama VacuPac Dry Box, Large (11.5 lit.) with Built-in Hygrometer

Have you experienced a Polarizing filter? If you have not, I seriously recommend trying one today.

Yesterday I was contemplating stuff … you know, looking through my memory bank of photographic experiences, when I suddenly stumbled upon a gem! The first time I looked through a telephoto lens with a polarizing filter at the other end … MAGIC! The world was different; the sky was a darker shade of blue, the leaves were a richer green and wonder of wonders, the lake surface I was looking at was clear! That was my first Pola-Magic moment.

Photo by: Aidan Wojtas

The second was a bit more ‘impersonal.’ It didn’t happen to me in person. But that didn’t take away any of the magic. It was on TV. Discovery channel, I believe, and I was watching a program about wildlife. The image on the screen was that of a dolphin (or maybe it was a shark or a killer-whale, I got lost in the magic and forgot what exactly they were following) and it seemed like it was being photographed by some new kind of underwater camera until suddenly it broke the surface to breathe and I noticed that splashes of white foam broke to the sides of the animal. It was magic!

Here I was, thinking for all this time that the animal was being followed by an under-water camera when in fact it was being shot by a cameraman in the air, suspended a couple of hundred feet above the animal (yes, I know its stupid not to recognise the angle of the shot, but did I mention Magic?). The photographers themselves were talking about the magic of the moment, and then the magic was revealed. They were using a polarizing filter on the camera. My second Pola-Magic moment.

Pola-Magic Secrets

Now, there’s something else that I have to mention about polarizing filters, but that involves a bit of a technical discussion about how polarising filters work in the first place. I assure you, it will be to the point and will help you with your experiments with Polarizing filters.

When light from the sun strikes an object, it is naturally polarized. All the rays come from the same source, and as a result the waves are oscillating along the same axis. Now, when they strike an object, the rays scatter, shifting the plane of the waves and scattering light. Polarizing filters work by allowing only light waves that are oscillating on one particular plane to pass through. This means that reflections are naturally removed, because reflections are formed by light rays reflecting off a different surface – and therefore, have a different light ’source’ – and most likely have a different axis of oscillation.

Photo by: neofob

How to use them

Polarizing filters come in two types… Linear and Circular. The linear kind was given up with the advent of auto-focus cameras because of the way that the AF in the cameras worked. The circular polarizer is designed to work with AF mechanisms and still let you have great Pola-Magic moments. They’re neutral filters in the sense that they don’t add any colouring to the image. When used correctly, they increase the saturation and vividness of the colours in your frame, clouds in the sky are better defined, leaves are a richer green and just about everything looks nicer.

Here are some tips to help you when using a polarizing filter:

1. A polarizing filter is a very interactive one. It’s not one that you just screw on and forget about. You need to keep adjusting it to get the best results.
2. Polarizing filters don’t work very well with wide-angle lenses. They tend to darken only certain parts of the sky and leave other parts bright. This could leave you with a patchy sky. Not a good thing, unless you like it that way.
3. Polarizing filters will not remove reflections from mirrors or reduce reflections on metallic surfaces.
4. A polarizing filter is made of two parts. A screw-in mount to attach it to your lens, and a filter housing that is firmly – yet freely turning – attached to the screw-in mount.
5. When using the polarizing filter, first compose the frame as you want it.
6. Turn the filter once you’ve composed the frame until you get the desired polarizing effect. It is most effective at 90 degree angle to the sun.
7. Remember that a polarizing filter typically reduces the amount of light that goes through it by around two f-stops. This makes it a bad idea to use it in dimly lit situations. It also means that if you’re using a camera that does not have Through The Lens metering (TTL), you’ll have to open up by roughly two f-stops. This is a number that you’ll have to arrive at by trial and error.

Find Polarizing filters on Amazon.com. Or, if you have one in your bag, get it out and start shooting!

Do you have some other tips about polarising filters that you would like to share? Do leave a comment or mail me.

by Charlietyack

Photography is all about light. How you see it, how it affects a scene, and how that affects the person viewing the photograph. The dark black & white photograph taken with fast film, with its characteristic grainy ‘texture’ will always draw people to it…

Lets take a peek into what equipment you’ll need and what you can do with it…

[Read more →]

Flare is a kind of haze often caused by light falling directly on the lens from behind or around the subject. This light may be direct or deflected. Flare may also be caused by light deflecting off fog, smog or dust in the atmosphere. It is more pronounced if it is caused by the position of the main light source. Unless this haze is intentional you may want to recognize and eliminate Flare!

Happy Shooting!

Remember to be aware of and study the main source of light. The main source of light may be a direct source of light, sunlight deflecting from a wall or sunlight diffused by clouds. If the key light is directly behind, or not more than 55 degrees to the right or left of the camera, the image and colours will be clearer. Also, do not forget that ‘Head on’ lighting is flat and uninteresting! Light at 45 degrees to the subject would be more interesting in most cases!

Happy Shooting!

Why Filters are fun
Filters have always been a fun thing for me in my photography, they allow you to take a photograph of a normal scene, and make it look extraordinary. There are various kinds of filters, coloured filters and special effects filters.

Colour Filters essentially add and subtract colour from the scene. For example, a yellow filter allows the frequencies of light that show up as yellow to pass through while reducing light of the opposite colour, blue. This is useful to know when you’re using filters for colour correction and when using filters for black and white photography. We’ll discuss those in more depth later, right now I want to get to the more interesting, special effects filters.

Neutral Density (ND) Filters decrease the amount of light that goes through the lens without changing its colour. This is great if you want to use a slow shutter speed or ISO on a bright day… You could also use it when you need to use a wider aperture for more depth of field. The effects that you can achieve with this filter are only limited by your imagination.

by Younes Bounhar

Graduated Filters are great on bright days when you want to get both your sky and land exposed well. Very often, we see pictures with well exposed land masses but totally white skies or vice versa, great blue skies but dark landmasses. A Graduated Neutral Density filter is clear on one side, but progressively gets darker, like an ND filter. There are also coloured graduated filters for other effects… Its important to remember that this gradation is affected by the aperture. The smaller the aperture (usually f/8 and smaller), the softer the apparent gradation. Large apertures could result in the gradation appearing as a narrow line…

Starburst Filters are good if the subject that you’re photographing is dark point sources of light. Take a small city lane at night, for example, most of the scene is dark with some lit areas and some street lights. The streetlights are point sources of light and when used with this filter will diffract into star patterns.

Diopter Filters are also called close up lenses. The allow you to focus at closer distances, making it ideal for close up or macro photographs. They are cheap compared to macro lenses or extension tubes/bellows and are a great way to explore the world of macro photography without the expenditure.

by gaspi

Soft Focus Filters are filters that slightly diffuse a photograph. Most soft focus filters have a more pronounced effect in the brighter areas of the photograph. As the name suggests, Soft Focus Filters make the photograph look soft. This is useful for portraits where the photographer wants to achieve a nostalgic or ethereal look or maybe just give the photograph a diffused, glowy feel. Some photographers also use an old UV filter smeared with a thin coating of petroleum jelly to get a similar effect. The advantage of using this method is that the photographer can smear the outer edges alone and leave the center sharp.

An important point to note is that cameras with Through The Lens (TTL) metering – which means all modern SLR cameras – will automatically adjust for all filters that are fitted in front of the lens. So, don’t worry about compensating for them. If you have an older camera which uses manual metering, and uses a lightmeter that does not take readings through the lens, you may have to compensate for each filter’s filter factor.

But remember, no matter what filters you use, its the content and composition that will make your pictures stand out. Filters only help you capture what you’ve got in your mind.