circular polarizer filter - newb q's

erik527 · Mar 31, 2007

I picked one up recently for my d50. Should I always use this when I'm shooting outside on bright days? Or, should it only be used when shooting skies, clouds, greenery, water, etc?

What if I am taking candids of people and pets while walking on the beach for instance? Should I be using the filter or not?

Also, I find it very difficult to use the filter with the lens hood attached. Is it necessary to use the lens hood with the filter? If so, how do you comfortably maneuver the filter?

Any tips on how to get the most out of this tool are greatly appreciated. thanks!

wijnands · Mar 31, 2007

erik527 said:
I picked one up recently for my d50. Should I always use this when
I'm shooting outside on bright days? Or, should it only be used
when shooting skies, clouds, greenery, water, etc?

That's up to you really.

erik527 said:
What if I am taking candids of people and pets while walking on the
beach for instance? Should I be using the filter or not?

Once again, up to you. Why not try it out?

erik527 said:
Also, I find it very difficult to use the filter with the lens hood
attached. Is it necessary to use the lens hood with the filter?
If so, how do you comfortably maneuver the filter?

Depends on which hood you have. I can imagine that a bayonet hood will complicate matters a lot.

erik527 said:
Any tips on how to get the most out of this tool are greatly
appreciated. thanks!

Use it, take notes, see what happens
--
Don't wait for the Nikon D-whatever, have fun now!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_wijnands/

genece · Mar 31, 2007

Its my guess you will use it a lot for the first few days and then not as much.....It does reduce glare from leaves ,grass, water and shiney objects.

Is that always necessary ? thats up to you.......I very seldom use one anymore and one of the reasons is I feel a hood is more important.
But there are many opinions that do not agree with mine.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Gene
From Western PA.

Panasonic FZ 20 and FZ30
D50 and lenses.

http://imageevent.com/grc6

Just trying to learn and it's slow going!

markinvictoria · Mar 31, 2007

I use the polarizer when shooting water to remove the reflections, when shooting the sky to give a deeper blue color.

Mark53 · Mar 31, 2007

erik527 said:
Any tips on how to get the most out of this tool are greatly
appreciated. thanks!

As the others have said, I find a polarizer most useful when shooting water to reveal the under-surface color/detail, and at times to darken the sky. Honestly, I don't always take it with me unless I have a specific purpose in mind.

One thing to remember is that with many consumer-level lenses, the front lens element rotates while focusing, so if you've set your polarizer for the effect you want, that could change when you re-focus on something else.

NikonNW · Mar 31, 2007

erik527 said:
Also, I find it very difficult to use the filter with the lens hood
attached. Is it necessary to use the lens hood with the filter?
If so, how do you comfortably maneuver the filter?
One solution would be to use a screw on lens hood.

Poster who mentioned rotating front element makes an excellent point.

erik527 said:
Any tips on how to get the most out of this tool are greatly
appreciated. thanks!

You'll get the best effect when sun is off to side, rather than behind you.

Sunesha · Mar 31, 2007

Here some examples what Circular polarization filter do.

Notice the water, the waves, that the bottom is visble

The stillness off the water is more there and even good background.

Also very useful to to get details from the sky.

It also adds a bit saturation to the colors I think.
--
http://www.sunesha.se
Malmoe, Sweden

Sunesha · Mar 31, 2007

Oh I misunderstood the topic and question. I use the lenshood with the polfilter somtimes. Like that soloduck photo I used it as it introduced some flares/ghostlights. I just set it and put it on. If you have a bayonett lens hood is very easy to do so.
--
http://www.sunesha.se
Malmoe, Sweden

roumen · Mar 31, 2007

erik527 said:
I picked one up recently for my d50. Should I always use this when
I'm shooting outside on bright days? Or, should it only be used
when shooting skies, clouds, greenery, water, etc?

What if I am taking candids of people and pets while walking on the
beach for instance? Should I be using the filter or not?

Also, I find it very difficult to use the filter with the lens hood
attached. Is it necessary to use the lens hood with the filter?
If so, how do you comfortably maneuver the filter?

Any tips on how to get the most out of this tool are greatly
appreciated. thanks!

You may use PL filter in order to remove reflections near water surface and also when shooting green background. The PL filter dramatically improves the clouds background.

The best is to use at 90 degrees at the sun direction. It has no effect when shooting in the sun direction.

You should not use it when not necessary - it reduces the light about 2 stops and also has some negative effect to the resolution. It is important to use multicoating version of PL filter.
You may use UV filter constantly on the lens for lens protection.

--
Greetings,
Roumen

Bastion · Mar 31, 2007

I've often wondered about buying a circular polariser, but they're so darn expensive that I wonder if it even does what I expect it would.

When I am walking along on a bright day wearing very dark sunglasses (blue-grey tint), colours, particularly reds and pinks gets very vivid. Everything else takes on a deep blue tint. It's very nice to look through these sunglasses.

That is the sort of effect I am hoping to achieve, but I'm not sure a circular polariser does this, does it?

Mark53 · Mar 31, 2007

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circular polarizer filter - newb q's

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