What's best polarizing filter brand in 2023?

stillviking

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Hello,

Looking for the best (that does not worsen the image quality of lens!) polarizing filter to buy for my Canon RF 15-35 2.8. I'm out for market for some years, so, can you please help me what's best brand/model nowadays?

Thank you so much!
 
Breakthrough Photography X4 CPL. All their products are excellent and the customer service is fantastic.
I agree. Color neutral and very solidly built.
 
Hello,

Looking for the best (that does not worsen the image quality of lens!) polarizing filter to buy for my Canon RF 15-35 2.8. I'm out for market for some years, so, can you please help me what's best brand/model nowadays?

Thank you so much!
Same filters as "years ago" ;-) . The B+W MRC variations (IMHO).

R2

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Experience comes from bad judgment.
http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries
 
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Are you sure you want to use a polarizer with that lens? CPLs won't polarize uniformly across the FoV of an ultrawide. Could be fine at 35mm, but probably unacceptable at much below about 24mm.

As for brands, the ones named are all good. I have some excellent Hoya CPLs, but the high transmission ones I have apparently aren't made anymore.
 
Hello,

Looking for the best (that does not worsen the image quality of lens!) polarizing filter to buy for my Canon RF 15-35 2.8. I'm out for market for some years, so, can you please help me what's best brand/model nowadays?

Thank you so much!
What changed in 2023 in polarizers?

As above higher models of traditional brands like Hoya, B&W...
 
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Are you sure you want to use a polarizer with that lens? CPLs won't polarize uniformly across the FoV of an ultrawide. Could be fine at 35mm, but probably unacceptable at much below about 24mm.
This is the important point, and it’s not a function of the filter, whether circular or linear, or whichever manufacturer. It’s because the polarisation of sunlight in the sky varies, being minimal at 0 and 180 degrees to the sun, and maximal at 90 and 270 degrees. So any ultra wide view will take in a wide variation in polarisation, and so the effect in terms of darkening and saturating a blue sky will vary across the image, and this will look very unnatural in your image. It is also nearly impossible to rectify in post. If you need the polariser to increase saturation in vegetation, or to control reflections on water or shiny surfaces, that’s less affected by angle of view. For such images, if you have blue sky, take one image with and one without the polariser to see the difference, plus possibly blend the exposures to have a natural sky. It’s even worse in panoramas of course.

I use Hoya Pro1 CPLs and find them very good.
 
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B+W MASTER c-pol KSM MRC nano for the highest contrast, best optics and coating
 
B+W MASTER c-pol KSM MRC nano for the highest contrast, best optics and coating
Can you back that up with empirical data, testing that filter against others?
 
Are you sure you want to use a polarizer with that lens? CPLs won't polarize uniformly across the FoV of an ultrawide. Could be fine at 35mm, but probably unacceptable at much below about 24mm.
This is the important point, and it’s not a function of the filter, whether circular or linear, or whichever manufacturer. It’s because the polarisation of sunlight in the sky varies, being minimal at 0 and 180 degrees to the sun, and maximal at 90 and 270 degrees. So any ultra wide view will take in a wide variation in polarisation, and so the effect in terms of darkening and saturating a blue sky will vary across the image, and this will look very unnatural in your image. It is also nearly impossible to rectify in post. If you need the polariser to increase saturation in vegetation, or to control reflections on water or shiny surfaces, that’s less affected by angle of view. For such images, if you have blue sky, take one image with and one without the polariser to see the difference, plus possibly blend the exposures to have a natural sky. It’s even worse in panoramas of course.

I use Hoya Pro1 CPLs and find them very good.
The other use of a polarising filter, to see through glass or water surfaces, is unaffected by that phenomenon, whatever the lens's field of view. But I don't really have a brand recommendation.
 
I would be careful shopping for filters by brand name alone. Many/most of the sellers of filters sell different grades/lines of filters and some of the best known sellers sell some mediocre or even poor quality filters in their "economy" lines.

There are some videos available where people have actually tested various filters. I would consider those tests as better info than brand name alone.
 
Are you sure you want to use a polarizer with that lens? CPLs won't polarize uniformly across the FoV of an ultrawide. Could be fine at 35mm, but probably unacceptable at much below about 24mm.
This is the important point, and it’s not a function of the filter, whether circular or linear, or whichever manufacturer. It’s because the polarisation of sunlight in the sky varies, being minimal at 0 and 180 degrees to the sun, and maximal at 90 and 270 degrees. So any ultra wide view will take in a wide variation in polarisation, and so the effect in terms of darkening and saturating a blue sky will vary across the image, and this will look very unnatural in your image. It is also nearly impossible to rectify in post. If you need the polariser to increase saturation in vegetation, or to control reflections on water or shiny surfaces, that’s less affected by angle of view. For such images, if you have blue sky, take one image with and one without the polariser to see the difference, plus possibly blend the exposures to have a natural sky. It’s even worse in panoramas of course.

I use Hoya Pro1 CPLs and find them very good.
The other use of a polarising filter, to see through glass or water surfaces, is unaffected by that phenomenon, whatever the lens's field of view. But I don't really have a brand recommendation.
As I pointed out…
 
Breakthrough Photography X4 CPL. All their products are excellent and the customer service is fantastic.
+1

I've always used the top of the line B+W, and they are excellent, but have moved completely over to Breakthrough Photography X4 filters now. Extremely happy with the results and the folks at Breakthrough are great to work with!!!
 
They are even more than the BW Kaesemanns that I love, but I always tend to come back to Singh Ray.

I also use Hoya Evo or hmcs on my midgrade lenses.
 
Exactly.

while I’ve done my own testing and the Breakthrough, to my intense surprise, bested both Heliopan and B+W, but my testing was far from rigorous. It consisted on photographing skies and reflections on a bowl of water. While that sufficed for my needs, it was far more anecdotal than scientific.
 
Exactly.

while I’ve done my own testing and the Breakthrough, to my intense surprise, bested both Heliopan and B+W, but my testing was far from rigorous. It consisted on photographing skies and reflections on a bowl of water. While that sufficed for my needs, it was far more anecdotal than scientific.
Like many things in life, easier to ask then to provide ;-)

Even rigorous testing doesn't always tell what effect, if any, it will have on someone else's shooting style
 
Exactly.

while I’ve done my own testing and the Breakthrough, to my intense surprise, bested both Heliopan and B+W, but my testing was far from rigorous. It consisted on photographing skies and reflections on a bowl of water. While that sufficed for my needs, it was far more anecdotal than scientific.
Fair enough. With this explanation it gives way different picture than just saying that "B&W.... is the best".
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For optical image quality of the its best to look at rogers article on protection filters. https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/20...anking-of-the-major-uv-filters-on-the-market/

For the coating I did my own additional tests with citylights during night comparing some of best I could get my hands on it ( hoya, canon, zeiss, b+w). Finally the most important property is the polarisation degree - maximum transmission in parallel orientation and minimal crossed. This is done by the polymer layer between the two glass elements. This sealed combination after Erwin Käseman leads to a long lasting and high polarisation effect of the B+W. The later you see directly by the lower extension factors of the high transmission filters. While normal pol filters lose 1.5 to 2 stops, the b+w master käseman lose only 1 to 1.5 stops .
 
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