Best reasonably priced Polarising filter

Jo Davies

Jo Davies

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I am not really much of a landscape photographer but I spend a lot of my time going out in my camper van and I end up photographing seascapes with my phone - I know - I know lol

I borrowed a friends polarising filter yesterday for a walk to some waterfalls near where I live and I absolutely fell in love with the results I got using it - so I am asking you all if you can recommend a good reasonably price filter for me. I do not shoot landscapes for a living, just for fun, so do not have an immense budget but would love to keep one in my camera bag for when I am out in the van.

Can you help?
 
Thanks for sending the those links Coyon, the £20 one is more my budget but I have had the Hoya Pro-1 recommended to me by someone else and was wondering if I would really notice much difference between the two?
 
Thanks Chris, however I am not a professional landscape photographer I am just doing this for fun so would I really notice the difference if I went with the cheaper option? Would you be able to tell the difference if I showed you images taken with each filter?
 
As a general rule of thumb, if you are going to stick anything at all in the line of light then it should be the best you can afford, if that matters to you. Yes, there is a significant difference between cheapo polarisers and expensive ones. IMO you'll find the polarising effect more pronounced in the more expensive ones and the colour truer, permitting a finer control over the degree of effect you apply but at the end of the day it's entirely up to you and how much you want to spend. It's far more important to master the kit that you've got than to go out and buy the most expensive thing you can buy under the misapprehension that the more expensive kit will somehow make up basic flaws in technique and understanding

I'll add a smiley here just in case ;)
 
What you will find, Jo, is that generally the more expensive ones will be made with better quality glass/coatings etc. This higher quality will help to reduce flare amongst other things. I look at this way; if you take a photo without a filter, you will obviously be able to get the best available image quality from your lens. If you then add a piece of glass in front of the lens, you are reducing the quality of the image, so id want to make sure that the glass I was placing in front of the lens was the best I could afford in order to reduce the negative effect of the filter.

Incidentally, I use Hoya Pro-1 Digital filters.

Cheers

Nick
 
Thanks Nick - I think I will wait a couple more months and get the Hoya :)
 
Any. I use an ebay cheapy because it's better than my Hoya and Tiffen ones!
 
I've heard that the latest range have different coatings, but I gave up using a Hoya Pro1-Digital CPL because it was so difficult to keep clean.
I'm now using the B+W MRC polariser which has the further advantage of a brass mount, which screws on and off a lot more smoothly than the aluminium Hoya mount.

IMHO polarisers are much like tripods, buy a cheap one now and you'll be buying a better (i.e more expensive) one later.
A good polariser should (barring accidents) last forever.
 
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