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I ran into yet another in my long list of “Doh!” moments after a shoot at the beach last weekend.

Reviewing the shots later, on the computer, I noticed that a whole series of shots were badly lacking in contrast and saturation. The post-storm light on the beach was very bright and flat to begin with, but these shots were much flatter and colorless than I would have expected. Initially, I just wrote it off to the particular combination of camera, subject, and settings.  Turned out I was wrong.

I’m not at all obsessive about cleaning my equipment – but generally, if I use a filter I clean it before putting it away at the end of the day so it’s ready next time. Now, for part of this shoot I’d pulled out a tele-zoom lens I use infrequently, and to cut through glare, attached its matching circular polarizer (which I use even less often).

Later, when getting ready to clean the filter before putting it away I noticed that one side of the filter was covered edge-to-edge with an even grey film – like fog on the inside of a car window! Just looking through it with the naked eye, I realized that this awful haze was why the particular shots appeared so lifeless – I was shooting through self-inflicted “heavy fog!”

Of course I cleaned the filter thoroughly, but I was also a bit confused – the filter was clean when I put it away…. Well, a bit of investigation showed that the filter’s case had a Styrofoam pad in the bottom to keep the filter from banging around inside and cushion it. Best I can figure is that the Styrofoam out-gassed (released tiny amounts of chemical gasses as part of its aging process) and those gasses had deposited themselves all over one side of the filter!

So, a few points emerge:

• Yeah, I really should have checked the filter before I attached it – assuming it was clean after 6 months in storage turned out to be a bad idea.
• I checked a couple of other filters and one of those had also been hazed-up!

Considering this further; having Styrofoam as a cushion may be a “good idea” on the face of it – certainly cheap and easy for the manufacturers. But it would be better to replace these with a layer or two of microfiber cloth in each filter box. That would:

1. Immobilize and cushion the filter;
2. Reduce or eliminate the risk of outgassing, and;
3. Provide a convenient way to touch up a filter in the field when you need to get or keep it clean.

Sounds like a perfect rainy winter night mini-project…

Tip: bags of nice microfiber cloths are available cheap in Target’s automotive section.