circular polarizer.....??
 

right well i finally got my self a circular polarizing filter, but it has a little knob on it as if it is meant to be twisted? does it matter what position you have it in?

When you rotate the front element of a CP filter it will change the amount of polarization depending on the angle of the sun in your picture.... thats why it rotates.

I never used one, but are you not supposed to turn the filter when you turn your camera 90 degrees for a vertical shot instead of a horizontal shot? It has to be turned correctly to work properly.

I really need to get one and play around with it a bit.

You just have to play around with it, as it depends on your relative angle to the sun when you take you shot (and also on the sky and sun conditions).

Rotate the poloriser as you are looking through the viewfinder and you will see that the effect of the polariser (darker sky colour) will change as you rotate it.

Get it in the position you want, then take the shot. Remember though, that having at it maximum effect is not always desirable, as it often creates a very dark image.

it also only really works on blue sky, or partial blue sky / fluffy clouds (and also for water shots, but thats a different story).

On overcast days it will have a very minimal effect on your skies.

In addition to TK's reply, for best results you should have the sun at 90 degrees to yourself. A good rule of thumb is to position the sun level with your shoulder.

You'll find the polariser will add depth the bright colours (such as the sky) and will also cancel reflections, especially in shots containing water.

Don't use it in conjunction with Skylight or UV Haze filters.

Cuts out reflections off surfaces too, the light is plane polarised especially at the Brewsters angle of ~50 degrees...you can cut it all out with a polariser. The joys of physics [yes]

Out of curiosity why not?

You can stack filters but you will run into a few issues with doing so.

First off.... you might experience vignetting in the corners of your pictures... this is caused by light falloff in the corners.
Secondly would be degraded picture quality. The more glass (especially lower quality glass and especially plastic) you have infront of the cameras sensor the lower quality the end picture will have.
third would be reflection between the filters.

If you want both UV and Polarization at the same time then purchase a UV/CP hybrid filter. Personally I have both for my older camera setup and have never really used the UV filter for anything other than a lens guard role for the cameras lens. A CP imho is an almost must have for outdoor/nature/landscape shots. True you can get great results without on but with it they just have that POP effect.

To further comment on the second point I made above.... please please don't buy a $10 CP filter and put it infront of your cameras lens. If your going to buy filters for your camera than your more than likely becomes fairly serious about your photography and the results your looking for. I find it extremely difficult not to smack people you are willing to spend $1K on a lens for a camera or pay $400+ for a pro-sumer model and then when it comes to filters they buy the cheapest model they can find. Everyone knows good glass costs good money.... so the same holds true for the filters!

Exactly. I can't think of a creative or technical reason why you'd want to combine a circular polariser with a UV haze filter anyway - but if you're going to stack filters, they should be of the highest quality you can afford. Most modern lenses filter out some UV anyway.


To further comment on the second point I made above.... please please don't buy a $10 CP filter and put it infront of your cameras lens. If your going to buy filters for your camera than your more than likely becomes fairly serious about your photography and the results your looking for. I find it extremely difficult not to smack people you are willing to spend $1K on a lens for a camera or pay $400+ for a pro-sumer model and then when it comes to filters they buy the cheapest model they can find. Everyone knows good glass costs good money.... so the same holds true for the filters! I couldn't agree with this more and I made the same comment on the old boards quite a while back. People sometimes buy a cheap skylight filter to protect the lens, but this is a false economy for the reason you just stated - I use a UV filter on my lenses which cost be about £60 back in the UK. Unfortunately many websites are telling people to do this, stating that such filters should only cost "a couple of bucks".

$50 or so for a semi decent filter is well worth the money (no need to spend $400 on a GND filter unless you're selling pics to national geographic) from Hoya or Cokin.

Check out this rather excellent page on this subject... well worth a read.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/co...m-feb-05.shtml

blahblah

I use a uv filter as protection to the actual lens, I just leave it on there all the time.[/quote]

What some people would argue is that you're probably degrading your image quality slightly doing so.

I would be including in that some people arguement. ;-)~

Me too, but I hate to be confrontational when it comes to creative decisions...http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/blink1.gif