Which CP Filter for XL2

[Caleb Royer]

Is it important to us a Circular Polarize filter?
If it is important then which make and model should I get?
I will be shooting wildlife only.

Thanks in Advance,

CJ

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Both will work, but I generally prefer to buy a circular rather than linear due to the adaptablilty to also use the filter on so many modern SLR & DSLR cameras. I've also found that the linear filters can sometimes confuse the metering system, and seeing that there there is not much difference in price you might as well go for the CP.

Regarding brands of filters, this is not as important as it is for still cameras, so most brands will do and there will be little difference between them. Some brands have slightly different colour shifts, so this may be important to you.

Nikon and Pentax own brand filters are top notch.

The B+W are superb, with high quality metal rims and good glass, but tend to be pricey, as do the Heliopan.

The Hoya are very good indeed. The high end digital 'Pro' versions have thinner metal rim to avoid vignetting with wide angles, although you will not see any difference in footage quality compared to using the basic and much cheaper Hoya Cir Polarizer.

The Tiffen are very good.

The Kenko and Marumi are also good.

There are some cheap and nasty brand filters out there, but even the cheaper shop versions are extremely good, such as the Jessops Cir Polariser filter which came No.1 in a test against major brands costing much more.

I'm also looking for another PL filter for my Canon XL 6X lens, and will buy one this weekend. I tend myself to stick to B+W, Tiffen, Kenko and Hoya.

Note that the top-class Hoya Pro 1 polarizing filter is single threaded so will not allow the original Canon lenscap to fit properly, which can be a bit of a pain. Buy the cheaper double-thread filter to make life easier.

One last note, the Hama company (Germany) make good filters and the polariser has the added advantage of having a tiny finger bar fitted as standard to the metal rim, which makes it very easy to adjust the PL view without needing to touch the glass surface (the small finger bar can be unscrewed if not required).

[Martin Catt]

Circular polarizers are peculiar because they both polarize AND unpolarize the light passing through them. The "first half" is a polarizer, which performs the special linear filtering of light needed to remove or reduce reflections. It's basically a plain-jane linear polarizer. The "second layer" takes the nicely polarized light (with the annoying reflections removed and the sky nicely darkened) and converts it back to unpolarized light. Why? Because linearly polarized light can mess with the autofocus mechanisms and sensors in certain cameras.

I tend not to be too brand-specific about filters. A lot of them are grossly overpriced. Today, I went shopping for a 55mm circular polarizer for my new DSLR. Wolf Camera had one for $50.00, but that's because it had the word "Digital" printed on the package. I went a quarter mile down the road and bought a Sunpak 55mm circular polarizer (which also had the word "Digital" printed on the package, but in smaller letters) for $14.99 at Fry's. Looked exactly the same, identical 2-stop loss through the filter, just one cost less than a third of the other. Spent the day doing architectural photography with it. It compares just as well as the 62mm Hoya I have on the larger lens.

Martin

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Just of note, it really doesn't matter whether the word "digital" is on the filter pack either. Including that word on packaging for CP filters is just a marketing ploy to sell more at hiked prices. A normal packaged CP filter with no "Digital" typed in the description, will work and perform just as well on any DSLR, SLR or DV camcorder.

[Martin Catt]

Yeah, I should have posted a smilie after the word "digital." Don't you know? Digital photons are processed differently from analog photons, and need special filters to work on them :-)

Martin