Phil G

New to the forum. Looks really helpful. Just upgraded from Nikon D80 to a D5300. I do a lot of photography at the beach and was looking into polarizing filters.

Prices for a 67mm go from the range of $20 - $135. Can you help me understand what extra functionality you might be getting for the price? Seems like a big price gap for a relatively simple product unless I'm missing something.

Thanks for your help.

boydimages Loc: California

Phil, you get what you pay for. Stay away from bottom of price list. Cheapies will degrade your image. $75-$135 is about right for good quality. Great quality comes at a much higher price.

chapjohn Loc: Tigard, Oregon

Price of CPL's may not always indicate quality. I am finding the Hoya Alpha UV an CPL filters to be good at a reasonable price.

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

Phil,

Polarizing filters come in a variety of different configurations, paperer you need to first decide on what you may need for your new and upgraded camera system. Filters in general, will you use more than one filter? Will you have more than one lens? If you have multiple lenses are they all the same size at the objectiv3e lens element (threaded filter end)? Will you need to adjust the filter for effect?

Once you can answer these questions, you can decide on a filtering system, fixed, and locked in place, or adaptable to all lens configurations, and photographic opportunities.

Filters that are designed to be threaded onto the objective end of a lens are generally fixed to that lens and cannot be adjusted for effect. Without special adapters they cannot be used on other lenses with different objective lens diameter, or thread counts. There used to be filters that came in two parts, an inner surface, and an outer surface that could rotate for effect (early 1980s), but they would only install on one lens. If you tried to use adapters to fit different lenses you might get vignetting in the corners from the filter ring casting shadows on the lens.

If you will have a variety of different lenses from your older camera system, and perhaps purchase additional lenses for the newer system consider a filtering system that will fit across all your lens assemblies. A system that uses an adapter ring specifically designed for an objective lens diameter and thread count, all the adapter rings for all the various lenses you own. One filter holder for the largest objective lens you own. One filter for the holder that will be used for all the lenses you own. Buy the system for flexibility, buy only one filter for all your lenses.

Cokin makes such a system, I have been using them since 1984.

One note on purchasing filters. Know your Post Processing (PP) software before purchasing a bunch of filters. Modern software can perform magic on digital images that once were reserved for film production. There are PP filter software filters that can produce the effect of Polarizer lens filters, but in this case the lens filter performs much better.

Good luck,

Michael G

boydimages Loc: California

I agree that price does not always indicate better quality. Often when purchasing a higher priced filter you get the rings made out of metal and not plastic. Also, look for the metal or plastic ring to be knurled. Normally but not always the knurled feature is found on higher priced filters and not the less expensive ones. So, why would this knurling be important? It will give you something to GRIP when removing filters. In the field stuck filters are no fun. I have several CPL filters made by Tiffen and Hoya. I also have one made by B&W. This B&W filter is 20-25 years old and in perfect condition except for the outside ring being severely dented from a drop. Still works great, the dent does not affect the function/rotation of the front ring. I do not think the plastic rings would have survived. The B&W is my go to CPL because of the knurled ring. I can not tell the difference in my images which of these 3 CPL filters I use. I might if I made prints above 16x20.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

The different of price usually comes from the way they are manufactured.

The cheap one are made of resin or cheap glass, the other from treated, coated optical glass. The cheap one can (and will) introduce a color cast. The high end cut the light when inactive like a neutral density filter (ND). Now cheap does not mean inexpensive or expensive, I am alluding to quality.

Select optical glass and see what comes out then select circular.

Either way, a polarizing filter has always an effect on an image.

You have two type of polarizing filters the linear filter and the circular filter. For a digital camera you must select a circular polarizing filter. What is the difference? Both use the front end linear optic but the circular one adds a layer that 'circularizes' the light and prevents a moire affect.

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To avoid the caveat mentioned Armadillo - Michael - you can normalize all your lenses filter size by selecting to purchase only one set of large filters and use step up rings to use them. Caveat when using this lens hoods do not work an a different 'shading' system is need if you have glare.

The software filter ARE NOT as good as the real thing (physical filters) for the simple reason that they interpolate what should be there instead of working with what is there. This does not mean they do not have their place and use, they do. I will never recommend the use of software filters to replace the real thing (and am quite vocal about it).

boydimages Loc: California

:thumbup: :thumbup:

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

We have gone over this many times before ... use search at top of page.
Glass: Historically "cheap" glass was float vs optical ground. Today's float glass is for practical purposes equal(photography, not physics experiments). References were given in previous forum.
CPF Quarter Wave: The material use varies and can affect the IQ.... as I recall from previous detailed forum discussions. Quarter wave is the meat in the polarized glass sandwich. The quarter wave disrupts the polymerization and allows the camera focus to be effective. References previously given. Try:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/polarizing-filters.htm
Price: Not necessarily reflective of quality. In fact, as I recall, one (Canon?) of the higher priced ones was below most. Also as I recall the price quality curve, it was rather flat... low return on the $ increase.

BIG QUESTION. PHIL, CAN YOU PERSONALLY SEE THE DIFFERENCE?

Checkout http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-219632-1.html

Frank47 Loc: West coast Florida

[quote=Rongnongno]The different of price usually comes from the way they are manufactured. The cheap one are made of resin or cheap glass, the other from treated, coated optical glass.

If you take care of your gear, a filter can be a lifetime purchase. My own practice is to stick with the name brands and buy the best one you can afford. Personally, I have used Hoya and B&W for years with great satisfaction. I see no purpose in putting a cheap filter in front of an expensive lens.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

Paying the highest price doesn't guarantee the highest quality, BUT cheap is cheap. The things you want in buying a filter are brass threads, a glass filter lens (not plastic) and multi coating (MRC). In my opinion, the Circular Polarizer is the most important filter to have, so get a good one. I use B+W filters. Good luck, and happy shooting.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yep, Mac, good points... brass or plastic threads, the important thing is that the threads of the filter be the sacrificial lamb and not the threads of the lens or camera. The use of paraffin film on the threads is a good idea, it has a very low vapor pressure and does provide lubrication. High vapor pressure oils may evaporate and redeposit on internal glass.

"clarkvision" by Mr. Clark is a good source of technical information regarding photography parts. He, "Dr. Roger Clark earned his Ph.D. in Planetary Science at MIT in 1980."

http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/evaluating_filter_quality/

http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/index.html

Warning, his articles are not for the light hearted!!

Nic42 Loc: Cardiff, Wales

Sorry but this is incorrect; a polarising filter is the one filter that cannot be replicated in Post Processing.

Arca

Phil G

I agree that the best filters are those made with optical quality glass and brass rings. Brass as opposed to aluminum is important so as to prevent two filters from becoming stuck to each other. Aluminum is a softer metal and if you tighten a second filter too tightly to the first filter, it could (and has in my experience) get stuck. Do not waste your money on anything plastic, it won't last.

For this reason, you should consider staying with only brass ringed filters. As far as I know, only Heliopan (my personal favorite) and B & W do this. Both of these manufacturers use optical quality glass. At least in the case of Heliopan, their filters are laser sliced from a loaf of glass, as opposed to being stamped out from a pane or sheet of glass. This allows for highly precise evenness or flatness of the lens, preventing that type of distortion. Additionally, their 'Schott' glass is used in Zeiss lenses and that is hard to beat in any situation.

Both Heliopan and B & W are made in Germany and that may account for some of the inflated price, but I doubt if you can find better filters.

As had been stated previously, find your largest lens, let's say it is 77 mm. Get the filter for that size lens and step down rings to fit all of your smaller lenses. Your expenditure for the large, super high quality filter will be much less than getting lesser quality filters for each lens. This will come in handy if you purchase other types of lenses, such as GND, ND, warming filters etc. for color photography and yellow, yellow-green, green, orange and red filters for black and white work. (My experience is in film and not digital so these colored filters may not be absolutely necessary in the digital age.) But the concept of buying the largest needed filter and stepping down is correct. To reiterate, if you purchase the most expensive filter (let's say Heliopan for the sake of discussion) you can use the best filter (in my opinion) on all lenses, instead of perhaps not the best filter on all lenses if you had to buy three or four CPL filters.

BTW, circular polarizing lenses are needed due to the nature of auto focusing, not due to the camera being digital. CPLs were necessary with autofocusing 35 mm film cameras since they came out with autofocusing in the 1990's.

Good luck in your search.

Arca

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

All filters will cause optical degradation to your image. The higher priced filters SUPPOSEDLY will degrade less than the cheaper filters - What is YOUR threshhold for degradation ??

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

I suggest you check out the link below, this plugin filter has been around for several years.
http://www.xero-graphics.co.uk/content/metagrad.html ZERO GRAPHICS Meta Grad. It comes with an adjustable ND Polarizer effect. Used carefully with selections it can perform miracles. It will not block glass window reflections, like a CPL filter, but corrects a lot of sky problems.

Michael G