Polarizers, who's using them?

[mnewxcv]

thanks! looks like a great tool to keep in my bag.

 

[starcentral]

I just snagged a Tiffen 4x4 pola for around $50 on ebay. Im still on the hunt for a 114mm clip on for 4.5" filters.

 

[Michael Carter]

My rule of thumb is that if there is any visible human skin in the shot, the polarizer stays in my camera bag. The exception to this would be shooting through a window or windshield.

Even then, I'm not a big fan of them.

I shoot a lot of events for master-planned communities, often a celebrity present signing books or someone like Jimmy Houston doing fishing camps. The places are acreage communities with lots of trees and wooded parks, lakes, etc. So the pola is pretty much on all day. Skies, trees, foliage - everything pops better and they seem to cut some haze.

For that kind of work, I leave it on whether there's people in the shots or not and it looks fine. When I do the celeb interview, I pull it or use the DSLR. They're not terrible things for people - I'd rather have the deep blue sky and water for that sort of work. But I don't use them for interviews or generally "pretty" work unless there are windows with problems or I want the sky to really look deep.

Funny thing is, all the kids using variable NDs on their DSLRs… they're polarizing everything.