How often do you use the polarizer filter?

<p>How often do you use this? With wide angle the sky gets a bit uneven. Are you mainly using it with longer lenses? When it is away from the sky how often do you also use it to enhance the colors? </p>

<p>I find that for me I don't use it much with wide lenses, or if I am in the city. Unless I have some glare I really want to take down. Might be ok to use if I have plenty of green grass and green hills to enhance those colors perhaps.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>Mostly to remove glare from objects. Never with WA due to vignetting.</p>

<p>The polarization of the sky varies. Maximum effect is at right angles to the path of the sun. So, wide angle lenses and polarizers will give you an uneven effect.<br>

If you're shooting foliage against a blue sky, polarizer works well to increase the contrast and deepen the sky color. Likewise with snow shots. Since it's also ND, you can use it to get a wider aperture with high ISO film than without the polarizer. And, of course, to reduce reflections. I always have one with me, they come in quite handy.</p>

<p>I don't use it often, usually to cut down glare, and never with ultra-wides. Using it to enhance the colours: on digital never, on film every now and then but still not all that often.<br>

The ability to cut down glare and reflections though still make it a must-have filter for me.</p>

<p>Much prefer grads to darken skies /facilitate the lightening of foregrounds, even with a Dslr. Back in my MF Velvia days "does it polarise?" was virtually a universal question, and I think I wrecked as many photographs as I enhanced through making colours too solid and saturated. Now I probably don't use it enough. </p>

<p>I use it often in landscape work, to boost contrast, as a mild ND filter, and to control reflections. It strikes me that the last use is probably the only case where an on-camera filter can't be duplicated in photoshop.</p>

<p>As Brian and others say, to minimize or simply control degree of reflections. Used on same filter size lenses between 35 and 135 mm. Not usually worried by uneven effect with very WA lenses when shots do not include the sky. It is not permanently attached to my lens in use, only added in those fairly rare cases where reflections yield unwanted glare or cause unsaturated colors (unsaturated is not the right word as the colors are always there, but just diminished by the reflections) as Ray mentioned for re-enhanced colors.</p>

<p>Ray, I use polarizers all the time, usually on focal lengths from 16-300 and occasionally a drop in polarizer on my super telephotos for static subjects. I tend to leave the polarizer on my lens. I don't use polarizers to unevenly saturate an already cerulean blue sky. Unless there are a lot of clouds I will take the polarizer off when shooting the sky. I use polarizers to decrease glare and reflection on water and solid objects so they appear more saturated and/or show what's underneath so that brown rocks are more chocolate and manatee are revealed. For myself I have always believed that is the intended use of polarizers. Pointing a polarizer on a wide angle lens at the sky is always a problem because of the differential polarization that occurs naturally that you are already aware of. There are some creative souls who can probably make it work with the sky. I'm probably just not one of them.<br /> Good hunting</p>

<p>Years ago I used it so often it stayed on my lenses and was removed for those times I didn't want to use it. Since I've gone digital (Since the first Nikon D1) I don't think I have used it once. I rely on processing with software to do what I used to do with the polarizer. So that is about a million images without a polarizing filter in place. I still have them in the bag, but after reading this, I wonder why.</p>

<p>Almost all the time when I'm doing any kind of landscape/cityscape that shows a blue sky (no point to it with a cloudy sky). Less often with my 12-24 because of the issues mentioned above. I also use it for glare as others have said.</p>

<p>I hardly ever use one. In general, I find one unnecessary, particularly now we can manipulate luminance in image processing. As to reducing reflections, yes sometimes it is useful, but generally I feel that the resulting shot is simply different rather than better. There seems to be a knee jerk reaction to put on a polarizer whenever a photographer sees some blue sky and some of the results are too extreme for my taste. Nowadays, I tend to use it rather as if was a neutral density filter than to get polarizing effects.</p>

<p>I use mine all the time and on a wide angle! However, I never use it for the sky. Just water. I know software has come a long way but I doubt it will ever do what a polarizer can do for water without seriously degrading the image.</p>

<p>I used it as required, to knock out reflected glare or enhance colors on certain scenes.<br>

Otherwise it stayed off the lens. It was too clumbersome to use on a general purpose lens for general photography and took an extra 2 stops off a slow lens and slow film.<br>

If you are not careful, it can make the sky look funny, as the sky will have varying degrees of shading due to the effect of the polarizer.<br>

Similarly, today, I use it "as required."</p>

<p>Not as much as I might have thought. Most often, I just don't think about it.</p>

SCL +1

It can be incredibly useful for deeper color saturation (reflections), and on at least one day in Puerto Rico, I shot the entire day with it on the camera.

 

 

To get sky darkening, it's usually better to use a graduated "Cokin-style" filter.

Only to reduce/kill glare.

Unless you have one on each lens (a rather expensive method), I found it a hassle and risk of dropping and breaking an EXPENSIVE filter, to be constantly moving it from one lens to another. So it usually stayed on one lens for a good amount of time.

With the low prices, of used gear, I have two Nikon 52mm Polarizers for my 52mm Nikon lenses.

But I only have ONE for my 6x6 camera, and none (yet) for my DSLR.

The bulk of my colour (RVP50) production work takes place in rainforests where spectrals are a major hindrance. So a KSM CPOL is used 99% of the time on any lens to "clean up" spectral flares. But sometimes spectrals are desired to reflect the inherent nature of a rainforest e.g. falling rain on myriad leaves creates a very beautiful sheen, not so much on rocks. As no sky is in the frame (it's blocked out by the canopy overhead, but for shame, it still lets rain tumble down!) there are no problems with uneven spread. In open landscape photography a polariser is not the best choice because of the partial effect over the sky. Less of a problem with heavily clouded landscapes but judgement should be exercised.

 

The lenses in use (Pentax 67) are 45, 55, 75, 90 and 165mm.

At one time I used a polarizer regularly for landscapes, but they have fallen into disuse after switching to digital. They increase the saturation of terrestrial objects even in cloudy weather, and remove reflections. I found that when water, particularly inland wader is no longer reflective, it is often muddy or green. Modern lenses are much less subject to flare, so reflections on water add life to the image I'd rather keep in most cases. Polarizes are unflattering to people, removing the natural shininess of skin, and flatten the texture of other materials as well.

 

Because of the automatic adjustments in an electronic viewfinder, I find it nearly impossible to judge the effect of polarizer rotation on a mirrorless camera.

 

In addition to the usual attributes, polarizers are highly effective penetrating haze, especially in western landscapes. That can enliven an otherwise flat scene, or remove the sense of depth. You have to decide which works best under the circumstances. We were always told that polarizers were the best way to darken blue sky. However the effect on clear, blue western skies can be obnoxious - rendering them a deep purple. Wide angle shots display diagonal bands in clear sky 90 degrees from the sun, due to the nature of polarization by scattering.

 

More an more I find myself reluctant to put anything between an expensive lens and the scene, except for physical protection. Direct light on a flat filter causes veiling flare. Even a bright sky will reduce contrast as a result.