I had a day off from hiking. You’d think that I would have energy in reserve so I could shoot the sunset and moonrise, but nix. I’m sitting here on the couch, writing this. I can see that there are some clouds in the east where the moon is rising so here’s hoping that I’m not missing anything. Funny how it always goes this way… if I’ve done hiking, then I’m normally so tired and hungry in the evening that I don’t care how gorgeous the sunset is, I just want to eat and sit down. Today, my schedule was totally messed up and by 5pm when I only had eaten a sandwich and some ice cream since breakfast, it was out of the question to stay out until sunset (I had been in Funäsdalen to take care of some business). So all I did was a mini-hike, got a frame or two, and then heard the pizza calling out my name. And after a pizza, seriously, how do you do any shooting?
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I just need to mention the polarising filter I used for the above picture. My old Moose polariser has been giving me problems because it vignettes very badly (black corners) when used with the Canon 24-105mm lens at the wide end. Didn’t have the problem on the 40D obviously, with the crop sensor. So I got myself a super-thin polariser, the Kenko Zeta EX (The world’s thinest [sic], lightest circular polarizer ever!). Not only does it not vignette, but it also transmits more light than normal polarisers. The Moose pol is very dark and it kills at least 2 stops of light which has been a problem very often when needing to shoot hand-held (read: too lazy to use tripod). But this Kenko Zeta EX, it only kills 2/3 stops of light (tested today) which makes it very usable also for hand-held shooting. So if you’re looking out to get a pol filter, I can definitely recommend the Zeta EX. On the other hand, if you need a pol filter which doubles as an ND, then you should go for the regular thick filters. Like the Moose polariser, I have one to sell…