BACKWASHING CARBON FILTER

Vivitar VIV-CPL-77 Circular Polarizing Lens Filter

Vivitar Filters are manufactured from high-quality solid optical materials. Each individual filter is heat-treated to avoid any rare movement or distortion. Our CPL filters remove unwanted reflections from non-metallic surfaces such as water and glass. They also improve color saturation, clarity and contrast. This threaded filter is often used to increase the contrast and saturation in blue skies and white clouds. Vivitar's circular polarizing filters do not affect the overall color balance of a shot, and they will provide protection for your lens while shooting. Vivitar filters are perfect for digital SLR cameras or traditional 35mm SLR applications. The number on the filter you need will depend on the thread size of your lens. For example, the kit lens which comes with the Canon Rebel XT is 58mm, so you would need a 58mm filter.

Thought this might be of interest to people.
These two shots were taken only 10 seconds apart with the only difference being that I rotated the circular polarising filter on the second image (the right half) to its most effective postion.I was amazed by the difference.

They were taken with a Nikon D200 with the superb Nikon VR18-200 lens and the cheaper Hoya Polarising filter.
The exposure for the left shot was 1/350s at f10 on ISO 400
The exposure for the right one was 1/100s at f10 on ISO 400

With a focal length of 135mm you can see why I neded the 400 ISO setting on a bright sunny day to compensate for the polariser but I think you will agree it's worth it.

I shot the originals in RAW and converted them to JPEGs using the good and currently free RawShooter Essentials with no manipulation and then stitched the two half images together in Paint Shop Pro and tweaked the levels and saturation a little to lift the RAW images.

Here is another comparison between a polarized shot and a non-polarized one that I took today.

The lower shot is the polarized one in this example. The most obvious difference is in the deep blue of the sky and the clarity of the clouds in the polarized shot. The water also appears more translucent thus changing its apparant colour - in this example it would be down to personal preference as to which result is more pleasing.

The opera house also appears brighter and the second shot has more contrast in general.

It could be down to me not setting the polarisation perfectly or it could be that the lens is at a relatively wide angle, but I think the sky begins to get a little lighter towards the right, which is one downside to using a polarizing filter. However I think I would have to re-test this and practice my skills at setting the filter before coming to a conclusive answer.

Lens filters are translucent pieces of glass placed in front of a camera lens to alter or adjust the light entering the camera and more importantly to protect the camera lens. Lens filters improve photographs by giving you control over light and allowing you to emphasize the features of a scene that you consider most important. This filter kit is a combination of the three essential filters no photographer should be without. PLEASE NOTE: Some cameras require an adapter tube to fit the filters. This filter set is compatible with the following camera models: Nikon D40 D60. FILTER FD: The F-DL fluorescent light correction filter gives true-to-life color rendition by removing the harsh yellow-green cast ordinarily resulting from fluorescent bulbs. When shooting under natural light, a fluorescent filter dramatically increases color saturation of subjects. FILTER FD: The F-DL fluorescent light correction filter gives true-to-life color rendition by removing the harsh yellow-green cast ordinarily resulting from fluorescent bulbs. When shooting under natural light, a fluorescent filter dramatically increases color saturation of subjects. FILTER PL: Polarizers let you achieve vibrant color saturation, reduce or eliminate glare and reflections from non-metallic objects and glass surfaces, and minimize haze. The filter can be rotated to determine the amount of reflection to be removed.