A little while ago I bought this,

The Hama filter comes with a little screw-in handle to rotate the filter. A lot of people don’t like it and remove it, but I found it was a godsend from a usability point of view; you can adjust the filter with a fingertip whilst scoping through the lens.

Anyway. The screw threads on the handle disintegrated, meaning that I’d to return the filter. They’d none in stock, so refunded me. So now I’m in the market for a new one.

I thought I’d take the opportunity to review what I was getting before ordering a replacement. There’s a bewildering number of options with vastly different prices. Is it worth paying the extra? Primarily using it with a kit lens so it’s not in front of L-series glass.

Before I pull the trigger on another Hama, which I was largely happy with apart until it fell apart, any suggestions?

Cheers.

I think I got a mid-range Hoya that seems to work well. Can’t remember the exact one.

Only problem with it is it can be hard to remove from the lens if you are a bit too enthusiastic tightening it. I put a teeny bit of vaseline on the threads with a cotton bud which helped.

Does it have the little handle thing? Dunno if that’s common or if it’s unique to the Hama.

I use a cokin system which is easy to adjust while looking through the lens, but it’s a faff to connect.

Nope. No handle thing. I’ve never seen one with a handle, to be honest.

What are the advantages of the handle? I just grip the edge of the polariser & twiddle. Admittedly, it is a bit of a pain with the lens hood on, but not too bad.

‘s just easy, twiddle with a fingertip.

I use a Cokin Z Pro myself, and somewhere I have a Moose Poleriser which is absolutely fantastic (no idea where it is at the moment mind, used it a lot on Velvia back in the day)

http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/271035617767?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&cbt=y

Otherwise B&W and the like. If you are using it on L series glass then I suggest you should be going as high end as you can. Cheap filters on posh lenses does seem conterproductive!

The other solution is to go with a Lee Filter set up – thinking of moving from the Cokin to the Lee filter holder, and perhaps upgrade my grads/nd filters to theirs as there is a bit of colour cast on mine. Though the poleriser is very good so would stay on!

Cheap filters on posh lenses does seem conterproductive!

Sure – but I don’t have the budget (or, honestly, the requirement) for expensive glass. Sixty quid for that linked filter made my eyes water.

(“warm”?? What’s that, does it add a colour caste too?)

Price will be heavily linked to the front element size and hence filter thread size. The one in that link is 77mm, which is fairly large. Do you know what the thread size if for your lens(es)?

I think my Hoya polarising filter was about £45. Not 100% sure but think that is 67mm dia.

Filters are proportinate in cost to lenses. You can buy a simple cheap Jessops filter for basic lenses, or invest in Nikon, Hoya SMC, B+W or similar for expensive lenses. A cheap one will cost from about £20 or so, expensive ones several times that. The difference is in the quality of glass, but in real terms this will make virtiually imperceptible differences in image quality unless oyu are blowing images up to very large sizes. i’ve found that cheaper polarisers can be a bit uneven across the glass, giving less than perfect results. The best filters in terms of image quality are the type that slot into filter holders, but these are very fragile as they are made from very thin glass. Not really suitable for ‘field’ photography, and used mainly for studio work where image quality is paramount.

Do you know what the thread size if for your lens(es)?

58mm.

A cheap one will cost from about £20 or so, expensive ones several times that.

<nods> hence me asking the question.

A quick look at prices reveals some polarisers can cost £200 and more! I’d say for everyday photography, the standard Hoya filters are hard to beat, although I have heard various unsubstantiated claims that Jessops filters are made by Hoya or another big name manufacturer, and simply rebranded, maeaing you may get great value for money. I’ve usually gone for Hoya in the past myself. Circular polarisers are expensive compared to simpler filters such as UV and coloured filters.

To get the best from a polariser, I think there’s a simple rule about where the sun is in relation to the bit of sky in your picture, I think it’s 90 degrees but it’s been a long time since I did any proper photography! Polarisers are good because they help to produce more starurated colours.

You can achieve the same affect in Photoshop (bar the removing reflections on water thing that you can do with a polariser)

Possibly an idiot question, but…

Why would you need a circularly polarising filter on a camera? Glare is (partially) linearly polarised, no?

You can achieve the same affect in Photoshop

No I can’t. You might be able to.

Why would you need a circularly polarising filter on a camera? Glare is (partially) linearly polarised, no?

Linear polarisers mess up the auto-focus on dSLRs. All modern polarisers are C-Pol, though in honesty I’ve not looked into the tech behind how / why they work.

Sorry – my bad Cougar, I skim read and missed the bit saying it WASN’T L glass 😉

The warm up poleriser does give a bit of a cast, but in a tasteful warm up way! Since the filters are used for landscapes by and large it is a desirable side effect 😉 Though I just dial it on in camera or in Lightroom now.

And no – poleriser you can not recreate in software since it alters the light coming into the camera before it is recorded. You can boost saturation, but not cut glare.

That said, I don’t use one very often these days.

Hmmm, interesting stuff.

Seems that the filter is itself linear, but has a circulariser afterwards (i.e. not a circular filter). The autofocus components in modern cameras rely on angled partial mirrors which are themselves (partially) linearly polarising. Without the circulariser, the relative orientation of the polarising filter and the mirrors in the AF determines how much light gets into the meters, and the exposure can be set incorrectly.

Nice explanation here.