Three Water Lillies

Sandy: Good eye to see this and a fine comp. I like the partial reflection of the lilies. Even though the conditions were overcast you can still profit from using a polarizer when there are a lot of reflective surfaces/water in the scene. The polarizer won't really help your bird shooting and will slow down your shutter speed a stop or two so you might not want to just put it on your lens and leave it but for flora/macro and scenics it is an essential tool IMO. >=))>

Thanks Bill - I appreciate the information and I would have never even thought to use a polarizer under those conditions. I definitely will have to add one to my shopping list. I guess my main problem is that shots like the above suddenly just appear when I am shooting with my 100-400, but if I were doing dedicated floral/macro shots, I would be using my Canon 100 L lens. I need to check out the pricing for a quality polarizer in that I would really need a couple of them in different sizes. I did struggle with this shot as to whether to leave the white leaves highlighted or muted more reflecting the green of the lily pads.

Sandy: I have a number of polarizers in various sizes that I have accumulated over the years. My basic choice is standard Hoya filters that have served me well. I recently bought a new 16-50 lens for landscape work and indulged myself with a B+W model. The B+W is a nicer filter and when I buy the 70-400 lens I'm lusting after I will probably pony up the extra bucks to upgrade the filter for it as well. If you're just getting started though the Hoyas are nice and you could just buy one to fit your largest lens and then simply hand hold it in front of your smaller lenses. Not the ideal arrangement but it works. >=))>

Great tip Bill - I would have never thought of that! I'll look into it. I did check some on B&H after your last post and I do see that some can get rather pricey (non Hoya).

Love the perspective and the reflections, Sandy - this is very well composed to my eye. Personally, I would like to have seen the flowers brighter ( just personal taste ), and you could clone out the spots on the lowest petal of the centre flower if you felt that to be appropriate. Lovely image in any case !!