Advice on Purchasing a Good Quality Circular Polarizer CP Filter

[Roger3006]

Hello Everyone

As I move farther away from film and more into digital it is becoming necessary to replace some of my ancient equipment. My polarizers are old, well used, and mostly linear. It is time to upgrade and I am not sure what to buy.

I see CP filters ranging in price for a few buck to a couple of "C" notes (52mm and 62mm). I certainly want good quality but I do understand, you do reach the point of diminishing return when it comes to spending money. In other words, you may be able to spend sixty percent of the money and get ninety percent of the quality when the additional ten percent may not make any practical difference; however, sharpness is a necessity for many things I do.

What do yall recommend as far as brand, coatings, thickness, etc.? What matters and what does not?

Thank you all for your help and patients with an old film guy.

Have a great weekend.

Roger

 

[TCampbell]

I use a B+W Kaesemann MRC Circular Polarizer... but that's pretty much the top of the line.

I noticed the F-Pro version of the lens is about $145 but the XS-Pro version is a little over $200. The difference is the brass ring. They make this in "slim" (designed for wide-angle lenses... but "slim" filters have such a slim ring that there are no front threads (you can't stack any other filter on.) F-Pro is the traditional ring thickness. XS-Pro seems to be halfway between F-Pro and slim. It does have front threads to stack another filter, but doesn't look like there's as much thread there as would be on an F-Pro. Why this changes the price tag by $50+ is a mystery to me, but I don't notice vignetting in my 24-70 when using the F-Pro version of this filter (perhaps I would get vignetting if I had the 16-35mm lens -- not sure.)

You can get the filter in Kaesmann or regular and I think they also sell it with and without MRC coatings. Kaesemann increases the efficiency of the filter (I've haven't done extensive comparisons... but one day I was shooting with this, noted the meter readings with and without the filter attached, and particularly noticed that I wasn't losing a full 2 stops of light as is fairly typical with a CPL (I think I was losing closer to 1 stop.) I'm not sure if this was the result of the Kaesemann because I didn't have a non-Kaesemann filter to compare it to. It may have been nothing more than the fairly variable nature of polarizers.

Some circularly polarizers can be pretty bad. There are CPLs designed to give wonky colors (on purpose -- I think Singh Ray sells them.)

Just buy the filter in the largest size you would ever need and then buy step-up rings for your narrower lenses (which will save you from needing to buy more than one CPL.) I'm able to use my filter with every lens I own except my 14mm (which has such a curvature on the objective element that it can't take screw on filters at all... everyone either just buys the square plate filters (e.g. in the style of Singh-Ray, Lee, or Cokin) and manually holds it in front of the lens or they buy slide-in holder attachment.

 

[Trever1t]

I also use and reccomend the B+W KMRC, yes it's almost 2 bils but worth it IMO.

 

[Dao]

Review/test

Polarizing filters test - Results and summary - Lenstip.com

 

[Trever1t]

oh look, the slim (mine and it's a pain in the @ss) is at the top of the list? Besides not having a female thread the slim is sometimes difficult to remove and the #1 reason I hate th eslim is I can't use a lens cap but...apparently there is a reward for those inconveniences.

 

[unpopular]

I was happy with my Heliopan, it's the one filter I wish I still had.

 

[Roger3006]

Thank you all. You told me what I needed to know and I have a filter on the way.

I will post images after I test with and without.

Yall have a great weekend.

Roger

 

[bratkinson]

Note that the CPL filter test linked to above is 3 years old and excludes my filters of choice...Hoya HD. Pricey? Yes. Very high quality in my opinion, right up there with B+W Kaesemann in my book

 

[Roger3006]

Thank you all again.

Good glass cost money. I have always bought the best lenses I could afford whether, it is a camera lens, binoculars, rifle scopes, or the ones that sit on my nose. My friends tell me I am an optics freak. I hate to admit it but they are correct.

In my opinion, an image is only as good as the worst piece of glass it passes through.

Have a great weekend.

Grits