Photography Tip: Using Sunglasses as a Polaroid Lens

Today's prompt: "Share a blogging/photography tip or tutorial."

Quite a while ago, I read about a technique on the internet where you use sunglasses over your digital camera's lens instead of buying an expensive Polaroid lens to take better pictures. I've kept a pair of sunglasses around just for this reason, but I never actually got around to it, so today's prompt was the perfect day to finally do it.

Ideally, it would have been better to wait for a sunny, blue skies day, since the effect is mostly supposed to give you deeper, more dynamic looking skies. But I worked with what I had; a blustery, cloudy autumn day.

Here's What I Used
- Black Lens Sunglasses
- Brown Lens Sunglasses (a nicer pair that I just got for my birthday!)
- My Old Kodak Camera
- My Parent's New Nikon Camera

I'm using the two different qualities of cameras to show how the effect looks with different kinds of cameras. My Kodak is a grumpy old one that eats a LOT of battery and likes to suddenly drop off to sleep and not be able to be revived for a long time; so it can get annoying to use sometimes.

There's really not much to explain for this tip, it's pretty simple. You take the sunglasses and hold them against the camera's lens and take the picture. I find that it works best to hold it as close as possible to the lens to reduce glare from the sunglasses. You could also set the camera on a flat surface and place the glasses in front of it. It's less bothersome, but your options for pictures are limited as well.

These following pictures are taken with the Nikon, with the black sunglasses.

 

And these are with the blue sunglasses, still with the Nikon.

The glasses keep the sky from getting washed out, which I like. I would love to see how this effect would make a clear blue sky look.

 This one is with the Kodak and blue glasses.

And finally, this one's with the black lenses and Kodak camera.

I found that I liked the results of the blue sunglasses the best; while the black ones only added another layer of darkness, the other pair actually achieves the desired Polaroid effect. It was a little bothersome to have to hold the camera with one hand, and the sunglasses with the other (especially with numbing hands; my mood ring was completely black! And no, I don't believe it reads my mood, the ring simply registers the temperature of my hand.) But with pictures like the one below, I think it's worth it. I've wanted to go around and take some fall photography of small town architecture and autumn leaves before it's too late. The blue sunglasses really make the colors of the trees look nice, I'll have to remember to take them along with me.