For whatever reason that I haven't researched yet, UV light seems
higher here in Alaska than the lower-48. Even my brother from Florida
commented on it as his dimming glasses got darker here than in
Florida.
I say that because my Canon 6D seems to be a bit susceptible to UV
light and it's near impossible to dial the blue out in Lightroom.
HOWEVER, Adobe did fix a lot of that in the latest converter version.
But I have experimented with UV and Skylight filters on that camera as
a result. The Olympus and Panasonic cameras do just fine, it's just
the Canon (and not just my Canon, but you can see the same traits in
other people's pictures) that struggles here. It does seem to be an
issue with the atmospherics in the Anchorage region, as it changes a
bit elsewhere (more to that in a second).
So, what have I found?
The UV/Skylight filters (each do similar things, and overlap a bit,
but do approach it differently, which results in different results) do
correct the blue cast somewhat. It's a little misleading, though. If
you shoot raw, with and without the filters, you will see the
difference in the thumbnail or preview image (in-camera jpeg), but
once in Lightroom, if you press auto on everything, it comes pretty
close to matching.
These filters screw up the highlights. I'm finding that the highlights
will go yellow with the Skylight. To dial that out, you got your blue
cast back. The UV filters have left the highlights alone, but the blue
cast turns more reddish.
The upshot is this: While slightly helpful, I'm finding that the
latest/greatest from Adobe has had a far greater impact on the blue
cast and I'm not bothering with filters.
So, what is it about Anchorage atmospherics? Prevailing winds are from
the south-east. We have the Chugach Mountains filtering out the
moisture before it gets here. We are remarkably dry, even though we're
right on the water. It's odd to have rain, but still have low
humidity. Anchorage gets about 17 inches of rain a year, but Whittier
gets over 150. That's just a few miles away. I can see the Eagle
Glacier from the house (one of only a handful of houses that has that
view). In the twenty something miles up the valley you can see a
significant weather change. Even where we live, we are just far enough
into the valley that we have a major climate difference than the
Anchorage Bowl. While the "bowl" (main city area) is affected by the
Cook Inlet, our house in Eagle River is in a mountain valley that ends
at a glacier, snow field, and a huge mountain peak. It's not unusual
to see a snowstorm 15 miles up the valley. With rare exception, Eagle
River is 5-10 degrees colder than Anchorage. And we're JUST on the
other side of the base. It's not like those people that live up in the
Matsu Valley that have an entirely different climate than here. They
get winds and weather from multiple glaciers.
Yesterday was a classic weather oddity day. It was absolutely
glorious. It got warm, and it was pretty still. The bugs were coming
out. Anyway, it was a stunning day. Meanwhile, a high-pressure ridge
had been building over the Prince William Sound to our east. The
mountains contained it over there--until. Until is spilled over, and
it did with attitude. We went from 67 and still to 59 and 40-50 mph
winds in about a minute. When the first gust hit, it shook the house
like an aftershock. The clouds formed immediately and that was the end
of enjoying working on the deck with my laptop. But it did clear out
the bugs.
AK Schnozz
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