# DSLR Polarizing filters (Car & sky shots)



## dubbers (Apr 3, 2006)

Been reading about them in a magazine (Popular photography on Zinio - great cheap mag btw:thumb: ). The reason you might add a polarizing filter to your camera is to reduce/stop the white out of blue sky when taking a shot of your car. This means the resultant photograph is better exposed to show detail of the sky (clouds etc) and the subject (in our case shiny cars!). The article goes on to say that there are two types of polarizing filters, if you have a AF DSLR then a Circular type Polarizing filter is what you need (the other type is for MF lens). Lastly, the article says that software, like photoshop, cannot emulate a polarizing filter.

7dayshop have various sizes of polarizing filters, and cost about £12. Well known brand names cost £50+.

HTH

Ed


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## Affection to Detail (Jul 6, 2006)

Yeah I brought one years ago for my Camcorder, used to be able to turn the dial to adjust the effect. The aim was to reduce 'wash out' as I think they called it back then.


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## Spammy (Oct 30, 2005)

Just bought me an 82mm Hoya CRL Polarizer for my biggest lens, and stepdowns for the rest. £38 for the filter, £8 per stepdown


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## dubbers (Apr 3, 2006)

Spammy said:


> Just bought me an 82mm Hoya CRL Polarizer for my biggest lens, and stepdowns for the rest. £38 for the filter, £8 per stepdown


Where did you get your Hoya Polarizer from ?


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## Ant GTI-6 (Nov 30, 2005)

I have a Hoya 58 mm Circular Poloriser for my canon powershot pro1
Heres a few pics wit and without to show the filter on reflections on my car bonnet.

First pic poloriser on no flash









Second pic poloriser on with flash








http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b347/aaddington1/polorflash.jpg

no poloriser no flash
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b347/aaddington1/nopolor.jpg 








The reflections are cut with the poloriser on.

Ant


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## Spammy (Oct 30, 2005)

dubbers said:


> Where did you get your Hoya Polarizer from ?


Ebay


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## Exotica (Feb 27, 2006)

hmmmmm, the camera does lie. :lol:


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## Ant GTI-6 (Nov 30, 2005)

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *dubbers*
> _Where did you get your Hoya Polarizer from ?_
> 
> Ebay


Me too came all the way from Japan , about £30 if i remember correctly


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## lobotomy (Jun 23, 2006)

Hi, just a quick question. I'm quite keen on learning more about photography, and a lot of my pictures (of my car) have suffered from losing contrast between the car and sky -- I use a Fuji Finepix S5600, would one of these filters be beneficial for me to buy? Will they fit my camera, ie are they clip-on etc (sorry for my ignorance, I'm just new to it all)

Here's a couple pics of my car for you


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## Razor (Oct 25, 2005)

You could always go for a ND grad of about .2 - brings detail back into the sky without darkening/impacting reflections of the car.

Check out Cokin - fairly cheap and have a huge range of adapters.


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## parish (Jun 29, 2006)

Ant GTI-6 said:


> The reflections are cut with the poloriser on.


Whilst that may not be desirable for pics of your car, it's a great advantage when photographing things in water - fish, rock, coral etc. - as it removes all, or at least most of the reflections from the surface of the water giving a much better image of the subject. It can give some odd effects though like boats appearing to float *above* the water (by removing the reflections you lose your point/plane of reference for where the surface actually is). Also useful for taking pics through glass, such as car interiors when you can't open the windows/doors, for the same reason


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## willtwilson (Aug 19, 2006)

*Neutral Density filter*

I bought one of these ND filters last year when I bought my Canon 350D. The reason I bought the filter is that it allows you to take longer exposure shots. For example river/waterfall scenes.

You can get a graduated neautral density filter which only applies the filter to one half of the image which is useful for landscape shots. However, this wouldn't work if your subject/car crosses over the horizon boundary.

My suggestion is to use a polarising filter and spin it until you get the effect that you're after. These filters allow slightly less light in and might force your camera to use a higher ISO, resulting in some more grain in the photo. HDR images are probably the way forward as long as the effect is not overdone.


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## leeshez (Dec 26, 2005)

lobotomy said:


> Hi, just a quick question. I'm quite keen on learning more about photography, and a lot of my pictures (of my car) have suffered from losing contrast between the car and sky -- I use a Fuji Finepix S5600, would one of these filters be beneficial for me to buy? Will they fit my camera, ie are they clip-on etc (sorry for my ignorance, I'm just new to it all)
> 
> Here's a couple pics of my car for you


I have this camera i also need to learn how to use it.


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