circular polarizing filters

[Rog Tallbloke]

Do people use these much? Do they affect autofocus?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Orol]

Rog, in the past, a few years ago actually, I made some trials with such a filter. It is good for filtering water/glass reflections and the like. Otherwise, it only is one more glass in front of your lens with no much sense than protecting the lens. For special projects it may well be reasonable to use, but for general photography (everyday street, documentary, and similar), well, I do not think so.

The autofocus may get affected by the polarizing filter when focusing on the water or glass surface for instance. If the filter suppresses the reflections effectively enough, the camera, as expected, may start to focus through the surface instead on whatever becomes visible underneath. Beside this the autofocus works the usual way.

To be honest, since that past trials after upgrading to another camera brand and buying new lenses I have never bough a new polarizing filter for them mainly because of having really rare need for its usage. However, that's me and there are many many people around.

Peter

 

[Rog Tallbloke]

Thanks Peter. I have decided instead to put a UV filter on the front of my A12-28 lens unit as a permanent protection for the front lens element. For some reason the lens cap sent with my lens unit doesn't fit properly. I think someone mixed up the caps between their 28 and 50mm units when they sold them.

 

[Ricohfanboy]

Well, don't give up on polarizers so quickly, please: UV filters and polarizers are very different beasts: UV filters are (if at all) lens protections today. However, polarizers do very lovely things (by cutting out reflections):

- make a blue sky bluer (filtering light reflected by moisture in the air)
- make a forest (or a plant) green instead of green-and-white (reflections from leaves)
- allows to take pictures through windows (reflections from the glas)
- same for people wearing glasses
- and many other things (table tops appear wooden again; garments get structure back)

In other words: polarizers are among the very, very few filters that still make sense in the digital world!

 

[Ricohfanboy]

Oh, and "circular" polarizers are the ones that do *not* confuse modern autofocus systems (unlike "linear" ones, which may)...

 

[Rog Tallbloke]

Thanks Rfb, I'll give one a try soon. I like trying to photograph fish underwater.

 

[Bill3]

Here is one taken with a polarising filter on my Fuji s5000. Apart from a touch of sharpening this is how it came out of the camera. I don't think you can get the same effect with post processing.

 

[thelps]

I am not sure this is useful information but I recall circular polarizers were need in my OM4 but linear ones could be used on the OM2.
I think it affected metering on that particular camera and many more since. I still have my original Olympus 49mm filter.

 

[Bill3]

I haven't had a problem with circular polarising filters on any digital cameras - so far.

 

[thelps]

I haven't had a problem with circular polarising filters on any digital cameras - so far.

Yes, I think the circ ones will give no issues.
I suspect the problem more likely to occur using the linear ones - they may give incorrect metering or AF problems.