The polarizer sticks out far enough that in full optical zoom, there is
some vignetting in the corners.
First I've heard of that. Polarizer on top of UV filter perhaps?
Nope. The polarizer sticks out plenty far on its own. Here is part of a
picture which has vignetting in it. It doesn't happen all the time, but
most of the time:
And as others have said UV filter is to protect lens.
Well, yeah. I'm not sure why everyone is telling me what it is for. What
I said was that I didn't know how to judge the quality of the UV filter.
But given that this kit appears not to have been made specifically for
the 950 (else why a polaraizer filter which vignettes and which is
virtually unusable outside and a flourescent filter which is
superflous?), I do feel a little uneasy about the quality of the package.
For example, the description of the polarizer filter on the box says:
"Reduces the amount of light entering your camera. Eliminates over
exposed pictures when your lens aperture cannot be stopped down any
further."
Does this sound like an accurate description of a polarizer filter, or of
a ND filter? Doesn't it make you kinda wonder if these folks know what
they're doing?
Also, it is difficult to determine the effect of the filter by looking at the
display.
Nobody had any comment on this, but if you can't look at the display and
see the effect that rotating the PL filter is going to have, what good is
it? I was reduced to taking a picture, rotating the filter, and taking
another picture in hopes of getting the desired effect. Not the best way
to go.
Nothing wrong with the camera or the polarization filter.
Polarization is all about angles. Light from the sky comes
to you polarized at a certain angle. That angle changes
depending your view angle of that patch of sky relative
to the sun. When you turn a polarization filter crosswise
to the angle that the incoming light is polarized it cuts
most of it out, leaving only unpolarized light or light that
is at a different angle.
Anyway, when you change your angle of view relative to the sun
the polarization angle of the light reaching the camera changes
but the angle of the filter does not, thus the amount of light
passing through the filter changes significantly, and thus
your exposure changes. It would be nice to use the
filter with panoramas, but you can't.
Too bad.. Not the filter's fault. Not Tom's fault.
I agree. The problems are more of an inherent limitation of the
combination of the camera and filter combined. It's not necessarily
anybody's "fault". I just thought it would be nice to alert people up
front that, as you say, you can't use the polarizer fitler with
panoramas. I would like to have known that before I went out and took a
couple of dozen panoramas with it. (See
http://www.hsv-life.com/isabella/golf )
Adjust your expectations to match reality.
Well, thanks for the advice, but my post was not about MY expectations.
It was about alerting people to the limitations of the filters. If
someone had given me this alert in time, I would have adjusted my
expectations and not bought the set.
You still got a great deal on a set of filters.
It's only a "great deal" if the filters are of use. The flourescent
filter is completely useless (unless someone can explain otherwise to
me). The polarizer filter is only a hair away from being useless (since
it appears to be virtually impossible to predetermine the effect it will
have).
That leaves the UV filter. Assuming that its optical quality is equal to
other UV filters (which, given the other problems is a generous
assumption), you can get other UV filters for the same or less than the
cost of this kit, so this kit is much less of a bargain than it first
appears.
BTW, I don't believe I mentioned before that the lens cover cannot be
attached to the polarizer filter, so if you want to leave that filter on,
you have no protection for it -- yet another limitation.
)