Polarising filter

The problem with buying a Minolta Konica camera in the past is that the company has stopped producing cameras as a line of their business. Minolta sold out a few years ago and left their consumers high and dry. Their camera business is supposed to supported by Sony now but I see little evidence of this in Malaysia.

Another problem with Minolta leaving this camera industry is that it has become very difficult to search for their accessories. I say difficult but not impossible because if you really want to, you can search for the third-party accessories through ebay. But there are hassles of buying through ebay too, the major problem beig that you will have to trust the seller to fulfil his side of the bargain. I'm not very comfortable with this if I cannot see the product or feel it in my hands.

Luckily, I was able to buy a second-hand, almost unused Minolta flashgun from a colleague's friend who has now switched to using a DSLR camera. I'm still searching for someone who can sell me a second-hand adapter for my old camera filters.

Two days ago, I managed to borrow this chap's adapter and this morning, I fished out my old circular polarising filter. It could've been at least four or five years since I last used it. Still looked okay but I had to clean the dirt that can accumulated on the filter. The thread's just the correct size after I fitted the adapter onto my camera. True, the adapter stuck out from my camera like a sore thumb but it perfectly covered my lens barrel totally.

Anyway, with the polarising filter in place, I stepped out of the house to take some test shots with and without the filter. A polarising filter works best with blue skies and water reflections. Here are the test shots of the blue sky:


Both photographs are untouched. They appeared like the above straight out of my camera. You can see the vast difference that the polarising filter, used to the maximum effect, had made to the scene. Wonderful deep blue sky that accentuates the clouds on the right. Of course, the filter had also cut down the amount of light entering the camera so I guess if you are using it on a bright sunny day, you can afford to open up your camera's aperture by one stop. I didn't. Also, I think the filter will be less than useful if it's a gloomy day with no blue sky.

And below are my test photographs with reflection in the water. In the top photo which was taken at the Teluk Bahang arboretum, you can see that the reflection and glare had been mostly eliminated and you can see clearly the bottom of the pool, unlike in the bottom photo.