Circular Polarizer filter

Hi everyone, I am new to dslr and this forum. I just bought a Nikon 18-200mm VR lens, I am using it for outdoor

shooting, mostly landscape and buildings, I talked to someone and he suggested me to get a circular polarizer to get

a better color when shooting photos with blue sky, also it can act as a lens protector. What is your thought? Any

comment will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Denny

A polarizer not only helps to get bluer skies when used in the right direction, it eliminates reflection on leaves and grass showing them in richer color.<P>

<center><img src=http://www.geocities.com/dainisjg/polart2.jpg></center>

You will get better blue skies, yes, but you will also lose at least a stop of light, i.e. shooting at 1/60 now becomes 1/30 or worse, which can be bad if you're shooting handheld. Sometimes the effect can be unwelcome, and adjusting it before every shot can be a pain. Nevertheless, I suggest picking one up to keep in your bag even if you don't use it all the time.

Most people use a UV filter as lens protection. They're more readily available, cheaper and have next to no effect on exposure. Their professed use is to block UV, but for the most part they serve to protect the front element from fingerprints and spray. For a first filter, I would get a quality UV.

 

A circular polarizer is a filter you would use occasionally, to improve saturation, reduce glare, etc. It's definetly not a filter you would leave on constantly. It imparts a big hit on exposure, typically 2 stops. For example, rather than shooting at 1/250 second without the CP, you would need to increase exposure time to around 1/60 second. Also, the polarizing effect is not what you want on all pictures, and it takes extra fussing, rotating the filter, to get the effect.

 

Just looking at a CP filter you will catch on: it looks like dark sunglasses.

As a note, there are linear polarizers and circular polarizers. The circular ones are designed for digital cameras. When you put the polarizer on the lens, you'll find that you can easily rotate it with your fingers to adjust the polarizing effect. To see this, point it at a car windshield outside and rotate the lens as you look through the viewfinder. You'll see the reflected glare disappear and reappear as you rotate the polarizer. When you point it at sky or water scenes, you can adjust the glare reflected back at the lens and get just the richness of color and look that you want.

 

It's also important to remember that the polarizer is like sunglasses for your camera lens. As such, it limits the amount of light, usually by 1 or 2 stops. So, you'd only use it in good lighting.

 

Moose Peterson is a wildlife photographer, and he makes a line of Moose filters. These circular polarizers not only let you polarize the light, but also have a warming filter (81a) built into the lens, which eliminates the cold bluish cast that conventional polarizers can give to your subjects. This makes wildlife and other objects have a warmer color tone, rendering them more naturally.They're in the $80 to $120 range.

Thanks everyone for the helpful comments!!

Also, it's a good idea to get used to turning the filter to the left (counter-clockwise) so you don't accidentaly un-screw it. I've heard of that happening!