polarizing filters

Hi John.

Seeing as though you're getting the Lee system, i would consider the Lee polarizer. It is expensive but can be used with your Graduated ND's.

If that is not for you and you want a screw in one. Kenko pro 1 D Is the same as the Hoya pro 1 D and half the price. I use Hoya and Kenko and have seen absolutey no difference. Apparently they come out of the same factory and are the same. I buy these from http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/CYTOS...14QQ_sidZ798256064QQ_trksidZp4634Q2ec0Q2em322 They're from Hong Kong but deliver quickly and i've never had any problems with them.

Hope this helps mate.
 
Merc said:
Hi John.

Seeing as though you're getting the Lee system, i would consider the Lee polarizer. It is expensive but can be used with your Graduated ND's.

If that is not for you and you want a screw in one. Kenko pro 1 D Is the same as the Hoya pro 1 D and half the price. I use Hoya and Kenko and have seen absolutey no difference. Apparently they come out of the same factory and are the same. I buy these from http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/CYTOS...14QQ_sidZ798256064QQ_trksidZp4634Q2ec0Q2em322 They're from Hong Kong but deliver quickly and i've never had any problems with them.

Hope this helps mate.
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Thanks Mark,:thumbs:
regards
john.
 
Get the best you can afford - not necessarily the most expensive!

Of the best there are:
Singh Ray - absolutely superb and very fast for their polarising effect.
B&W kaesmann slim version - sealed against moisture (that is the Kaesmann bit)
Hoya HD
Hoya Pro 1 Digital (I actually use these, but they are a bit fragile, so take great care when cleaning, it is easy to wipe the coatings off if not or scratch them)

After that you can start to get colour casts. I did have a 105mm circ pol, but I can't remember whose it was, for use with the Lee and Hitech filter holders, might even have been a Lee - it was for use on the RZ67 and I think it was about £200 back in the 90s!! It didn't half knock the transmission though, about 4 stops.

I am amking do with the Pro 1s for now and going to get a couple of the Singh ray polarisers when the sun comes out to play - about August at this rate!
 
Hi John,

Got to agree with Mark, if you are buying into Lee then get their circular polariser.

I also got a second filter holder for it to be permanently mounted on. Makes life easier.

Regards

Chris
 
G2EWS said:
Got to agree with Mark, if you are buying into Lee then get their circular polariser.

Chris
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I dis-agree with that I'm afraid.

The Lee filter is ironically a bit too thick - try a Lee C-Pol on wide lens at full frame - you can see the C-Pol frame in the viewfinder when you start going down much past 20mm.

I'm finding Heliopan 105mm or B&W 105mm a bit thinner - you can eek out another 2mm at least with one of those over Lee's just as the black anodine frame is 2 or 3mm thinner than the Lee.
 
Hi Andy,

Interesting thought. Might be worth checking a thread were someone asked what filter for a wide angle lens. I did not answer as I have not tried my kit on the 17 - 35 yet.

Regards

Chris
 
G2EWS said:
Hi Andy,

Interesting thought. Might be worth checking a thread were someone asked what filter for a wide angle lens. I did not answer as I have not tried my kit on the 17 - 35 yet.

Regards

Chris
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I use Marumi Super DHG 77mm (Best C-Pol you can buy IMHO) and I can go down to the full 16mm on my A900 with Zeiss 16-35 f/2.8 with no problem.

With Cokin "P" I can't go much past 20mm even if I use a Cokin WA 1 slot holder - the holder is showing in the frame in the corners.

With the 17-35, then you can use a thin C-Pol (ie Marumi) no problem. If you stack an ND 3 stop or 10 stop, then you'll vignette until around 20mm.
 
john starkey said:
Hi All,i am looking to get one of the above for my 70-200mmL & 100-400mmL,what do you people use and recommend,
regards,
john.
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There's another current thread on polarisers that might be helpful John.

I would just say that getting a high quality filter is even more important with long lenses. They only 'look' through the centre of the filter and so any small imperfections are greatly magnified. I've seen some very blurry images taken with a cheap polariser on a long lens.

I would particularly recommend my favourite CPL, as with long lenses you usually need all the light you can get. Hoya HD has all the features of the very best CPL filters, plus it only reduces transmission by 1.2 stops - about 2/3rds of a stop less than most others.
 
HoppyUK said:
There's another current thread on polarisers that might be helpful John.

I would just say that getting a high quality filter is even more important with long lenses. They only 'look' through the centre of the filter and so any small imperfections are greatly magnified. I've seen some very blurry images taken with a cheap polariser on a long lens.

I would particularly recommend my favourite CPL, as with long lenses you usually need all the light you can get. Hoya HD has all the features of the very best CPL filters, plus it only reduces transmission by 1.2 stops - about 2/3rds of a stop less than most others.
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The imperfections might be highly magnified, but the poor depth of field of a long lens might nullify that.....
 
In my opinion,(based on many years of using polarisers in the field, I might add), there is far too much agonising about which make to buy.

I've used fairly bog-standard Hoya CPL's for many years,and I've never noticed any image degradation, and never damaged the filter on or off the camera. Only when I purchased a multi-coated Hoya one did I start to get problems, when i found the coating could very easily be damaged when the filter was put in a pocket (by sweetie wrappers, for example). I went back to bog-standard Hoyas.

Some years later a bought a top-of-the range B&W "slim" CPL to fit a new wide angle lens and started getting problems again. The filter got badly scratched for reasons unknown, so I replaced it with a Hoya HD, as recommended by a frequent poster on here. (;)). It soon got scratched despite me taking immense care of it, both on and off camera.

Now it may be that had I not had the filter on the camera I would twice have scratched lens front elements, which would prove the wisdom of using some sort of protective filter to your lens.

However the HD Hoya also suffers badly from flare which emanates from the edge of the filter in some circumstances, but I suppose it could be a faulty one.

What does all this go to prove? I'm not sure, but I'm now VERY suspicious of expensive multi-coated CPL's and I suggest that almost any polariser will do the job. In fact maybe 10-15 years ago I saw a review of them in one of the photomags which suggested just that. The main advantage of an expensive one being that it would not fall apart.

Probably the best advice i could give anyone would be to get out there and use your polariser, whatever the make. Knowing how to use one properly will be far better in the long run than agonising over which one to buy.

Here endeth the lesson.....

PS I see most of the action is currently on the other polariser thread.....
 
I have a cheapy hama polarizer that I bought off Amazon. Works fine for me, but no doubt someone will come along to tell me I'm wrong anyway...
 
jerry12953 said:
In my opinion,(based on many years of using polarisers in the field, I might add), there is far too much agonising about which make to buy.

I've used fairly bog-standard Hoya CPL's for many years,and I've never noticed any image degradation, and never damaged the filter on or off the camera. Only when I purchased a multi-coated Hoya one did I start to get problems, when i found the coating could very easily be damaged when the filter was put in a pocket (by sweetie wrappers, for example). I went back to bog-standard Hoyas.

Some years later a bought a top-of-the range B&W "slim" CPL to fit a new wide angle lens and started getting problems again. The filter got badly scratched for reasons unknown, so I replaced it with a Hoya HD, as recommended by a frequent poster on here. (;)). It soon got scratched despite me taking immense care of it, both on and off camera.

Now it may be that had I not had the filter on the camera I would twice have scratched lens front elements, which would prove the wisdom of using some sort of protective filter to your lens.

However the HD Hoya also suffers badly from flare which emanates from the edge of the filter in some circumstances, but I suppose it could be a faulty one.

What does all this go to prove? I'm not sure, but I'm now VERY suspicious of expensive multi-coated CPL's and I suggest that almost any polariser will do the job. In fact maybe 10-15 years ago I saw a review of them in one of the photomags which suggested just that. The main advantage of an expensive one being that it would not fall apart.

Probably the best advice i could give anyone would be to get out there and use your polariser, whatever the make. Knowing how to use one properly will be far better in the long run than agonising over which one to buy.

Here endeth the lesson.....

PS I see most of the action is currently on the other polariser thread.....
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Hi Jerry :)

I have not tried the sweetie wrappers test ;) Would you put a lens in your pocket like that, and not expect it to get scratched? :eek: Square resin filters would get ripped to bits.
 
HoppyUK said:
Hi Jerry :)

I have not tried the sweetie wrappers test ;) Would you put a lens in your pocket like that, and not expect it to get scratched? :eek: Square resin filters would get ripped to bits.
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I look after my resin filters as well as you reasonably can when you're out in the field, and sometimes needing to work quickly. Sometimes they go in one of my pockets, but not usually the one with the sweetie wrappers in.

As far as polarisers go, they are on and off my lenses like, well, on and off things, and to use a lens cap on top of them all the time, and a case when they're not in use....it is just too much hassle. I've tried it and they still got scratched. To my mind any piece of equipment that's used on a regular basis needs to be tough enough to stand up to a little mistreatment.

Sometimes my lenses go in pockets too, with or without filters, and they've never suffered any damage. I suspect that the coatings used on lenses these days is at least as tough, if not more so, than that used on filters, although I expect I'll be proved wrong any minute now.
 
I would disagree with Puddleduck overall the Lee circular polariser is an excellent filter & allows you to have one filter to fit a multitude of lenses. I do agree that of FF even using the wide angle adaptor ring (best used on all lens sizes anyway) after around 22mm can cause a vignetting. On my 16-35mm I do use a screw in filter but again the make has to be carefully chosen to stop a vignette. Therefore I only have 2 circular polarisers for my whole series of lens up to 300mm.

I also believe if you are paying a small fortune on a lens especially an L-Series why put the cheapest pice of glass you can find on the front.
 
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