Circular polarisers - any point spending silly money on one?

Dangleman

Dangleman

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As title question - I've just purchased a Hoya 77m circular polariser (blue box one) from Hong Kong for £25 delivered (they're about £50 in the UK). I have the same version in 67mm and it seems pretty good.

On the same site though I've just noticed a Nikon version going for £70+(!!!) and an Hoya pro 1 digital version for about £50. Is there any point splashing out double/triple for either of these do you think? Is it just the 'thinness' of the hoya pro 1 unit that you're paying for (to combat vignetting etc)? If so it's not an issue as it won't be going on a super wide...
 
Some would say that having a £1000 lens you shouldn't mind spending £70 on the filter, however i would say the difference in quality between the hoya and hoya pro is probably negligable for all but the most demanding users.
 
well i got my Hoya 58mm circular polarizer for £15 new, it works fine, but i've never used a 'pro' one so i don't know what the difference is
 
russbates said:
Some would say that having a £1000 lens you shouldn't mind spending £70 on the filter, however i would say the difference in quality between the hoya and hoya pro is probably negligable for all but the most demanding users.
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That's what I'm thinking. It's something I only use occasionally so am not bothered for perfection.
Aside from the thinness (which I think is the main cost factor) do the more expensive ones have a vastly stronger effect though - anyone used both (cheaper and expensive ones)?
 
be careful of some ebay ones if they are not genuine then they are really poor quality and can cause fringing and other nasty things.
 
Pretty sure this one will be genuine - is from Kea photo who I've used a few times before.
Out of interest, how would you tell if it was a 'fake' though?
 
I have an old Linear polariser from my manual camera film days and although are not supposed to work with digital and auto focus mine works fine on both the 350D and the 6500FD
 
If you have good lens, buy a good polariser. If you have cr*p lens, good polariser won't help, but bad will screw it even more. :) That's the truth.

Imagine good, dispersion-glass, coated lens and a piece of plastic bottle on it. How's that sound? :) That's how it is when you are using bad polariser... Same effect :)

Optical set is only as bad as its weakest part.
 
radiantvision said:
If you have good lens, buy a good polariser. If you have cr*p lens, good polariser won't help, but bad will screw it even more. :) That's the truth.

Imagine good, dispersion-glass, coated lens and a piece of plastic bottle on it. How's that sound? :) That's how it is when you are using bad polariser... Same effect :)

Optical set is only as bad as its weakest part.
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I get that, totally (will be going on a nikon 28-70 2.8 by the way, a great lens). However, the polariser I've bought is by no means a stinker (as long as it's not a fake :) ) - it's a decent hoya one worth £50+ in the UK.

This one: http://www.warehouseexpress.com/product/default.aspx?sku=11805

To elaborate on my original question , what would be the real benefits/ differences in buying the Pro 1 version of the hoya one, or the Nikon one (which costs about 3 times more).
 
Dangleman said:
To elaborate on my original question , what would be the real benefits/ differences in buying the Pro 1 version of the hoya one, or the Nikon one (which costs about 3 times more).
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I am not the best person to ask about Hoya. I think they suck. :) They're impossible to clean and they were falling of my lenses. I am a Marumi fan myself; same (if not better) quality and much cheaper. And so easy to clean...
 
radiantvision said:
I am not the best person to ask about Hoya. I think they suck. :) They're impossible to clean and they were falling of my lenses. I am a Marumi fan myself; same (if not better) quality and much cheaper. And so easy to clean...
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Really? I find that surprising, I thought hoya were pretty much considered the best?

As I say I have a 67mm already of the hoya (same 'blue box' version) and I've not had any issues to be honest - which is why I've gone for it again in the bigger size.
 
radiantvision said:
Are you joking? They just have good marketing :)

Look for more expensive lines of B+W, Heliopan, Lee... These are the best. And some others. Hoya is a budget, mid-range stuff.
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Cack :) Should have done a bit more research before I hit the buy button on this methinks.
Still, for £25 it's not the end of the world and I'll see how it goes.
Thing is if I don't have a more expensive one to compare it to, I won't really know if it's any good will I :bonk:
 
Dangleman said:
Really? I find that surprising, I thought hoya were pretty much considered the best?
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I have no idea, not having used them. But being considered the best, and being the best are two very different things.
 
By the way; Marumi, like Hoya, B+W, Heliopan and Nikon do some very expensive CP too! I took "radiantvision" head-up on the Hoya, and went to order Marumi only to find that they have two different range of filters.

Looking for 77mm CP, one retails for about £130 while the other was close to £50 :shrug:. of course there is quality issue, otherwise why the huge price difference. I just went with the cheaper of the two as I've never been happy with filters.
 
£ for £ the best polariser i have tried so far is branded "Sakar" cheapy bought off ebay (camerapartner).

I had a Hoya Pro on my my 75-300 and 18-55 and tbh it never gave any noticeable differences even on reflections. It cost near £40 for a 58mm version.

The Sakar one cost me £6.50 for 77mm and £5 for a 67mm to my door and produces brilliant results with no degredation noticeable on my 17-85is or 70-200 2.8. It allows me to control reflections on glass and paint work, see through water and gives great saturation and blue skies in bright conditions.

For the money i couldnt fault it.
 
Dangleman said:
To elaborate on my original question , what would be the real benefits/ differences in buying the Pro 1 version of the hoya one, or the Nikon one (which costs about 3 times more).
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This page
....near the bottom, Rockwell answers that Nikon question, flip a coin to make it gospel or not..
Never had any trouble with Hoya personally, you can easily buy crap polarisers though, plastic/uncoated/thick mounts that vignette on wides, and those that are just plain rubbish.
I think polarisers can be a bit of a liability on super wide glass, they don't render colour consistently across a really wide scene, and I don't mean vignetting.
 
Well, my new Hoya 77mm circular polariser arrived yesterday, and I'm now thinking perhaps it might have been wiser to spend 'sillier' money on one. :thinking:

As I said it's exactly the same type as my 67mm one, but mounted on my Nikon 28-70 2.8 on a D3, it really didn't seem to be doing an awful lot. In terms of reducing reflections it works fine, but for making the sky deeper blue it was doing b****r all yesterday. Weather was bright and sunny which provided good testing conditions, and it was at about 2pm.

I'm aware that the polarising effect is all about angles to the sun etc, so am wondering if it was directly overhead too much to get a good strong effect on the blues?
 
I find i dont use mine anywhere near as much as I used to (it stayed on nearly all the time for a while there). I think that my images are a good bit sharper without it. Having said that though, I'd still use it if I was out fishing on a bright beach somewhere.

Mick.
 
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