Polarizer Help!!

[mom2princesses]

I have a Nikon D200 and I am wanting to buy a 72mm polarizer for it. It's between the Nikon brand and the Hoya brand. Is one better than the other, is there any reason why I should get one over the other? Any and all thoughts would help. Please and Thank you

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

Just to clarify...you buy filters for your lenses, not your camera. So make sure that the filter you buy will fit the lens or lenses that you have. If you have lenses with different sizes of filter threads, then you can use step-up rings, rather than buying multiple filters.

As for which to buy...I don't know which one is better...it can be hard to tell. I would guess that the Nikon filter wasn't made by Nikon directly and is just re-branded...and it probably has a price premium added as well.

 

[mom2princesses]

Sorry, I meant for lenses. I just thought I would share the brand of camera I had so everyone would know why Nikon brand was a choice. The Nikon brand is more expensive, I didn't know wheather they had anything special about them that the others did not.

 

[conradtan]

I just picked up the Hoya for my Canon 30D. I love it! It really brings out the blue sky and clears up green treelines and such. Don't know about the other filter you are considering though.

 

[Sideburns]

If the Nikon is more expensive than Hoya...then a B+W shouldn't be far off. Just got mine, and it's amazing. Great quality, and sturdy as a tank.

 

[Mav]

The Nikon is ridiculously expensive but "supposedly" only loses 1 stop of light vs 2 for a lot of other polarizers. That's just what I've "heard". It may or may not be true. I'd probably go with the Hoya.

 

[RKW3]

If I were you I'd probably go with the Hoya.

 

[kundalini]

B+W for me. This could be for you. Expensive but unsurpassed.

 

[Helen B]

If you want to go upscale, the Kaesemann filters by B+W and Heliopan are among the best available.

 

[kundalini]

I was curious about those Helen. Can you or anyone else explain the advantage of the Kaesemann filter?

 

[Sideburns]

I was curious about those Helen. Can you or anyone else explain the advantage of the Kaesemann filter?

It's supposed to lose less light...

They use a different polarizing foil, and it's sandwiched and cemented between two pieces of optical glass. They are edge sealed to prevent humidity and whatnot from affecting the filter

 

[Helen B]

The materials used to make photographic polarizing filters are never perfect, but the nearer they are to perfection the higher the price. Käsemann polarizers are supposed to be made from better materials, and the laminate is supposed to have better edge sealing than other polarizing filters.

These are the likely sources of differences in quality for a circular polarizer:

The polarizing foil will have varying degrees of attenuation of the crossed light – ie the polarization direction it is supposed to be stopping. The maximum attenuation varies between materials, as does the spectral evenness – the degree of attenuation at different wavelengths. Hence different colours of polarized light may be attenuated to different degrees, resulting in a colour cast. Typically the blue and red light is less attenuated than the green. The maximum attenuation is up to about four stops for the better quality polarizing foils. (This means that crossed polarizers can have up to about eight stops of attenuation, by the way.)

The polarizing foil will attenuate, to some degree, the light that it is supposed to be passing. The degree of attenuation will vary with wavelength. Achieving high, spectrally-even attenuation of unwanted light and low, spectrally-even attenuation of wanted light is difficult. A perfect polarizer would lose one stop of light of all wavelengths when the incident light is unpolarized or circularly polarized.

The ‘delay plate’ or ‘quarter wave retarder’ that makes up the second stage of a circular polarizer will also be less than perfect – mainly because it is very difficult to make a suitable delay plate that works at different wavelengths, so only one wavelength will be circularly polarized, all others will have a mix of circular and linear (ie elliptical) polarization. This shouldn’t matter too much.



Best,
Helen