To Michael

It is commonly acknowledged that polarizer filters, ND filters and graduated filters are still essential tools for the landscape photographer.

After spending quite a few hours on the net, I came to the conclusion that the Singh-Ray range of filters was very highly rated, so I purchased 2 graduated ND filters.

Three months later, I can say quite confidently that they produce a magenta colour cast. I now wonder if all the praise I heard about them are because the reviewers are endorsed by Singh Ray.

Would it be possible to do a comparison between the major producers of filters for polarizers and ND filters from a completely independent point of view.

I feel that such a comparison would be extremely valuable to landscape photographers worldwide.

Kind Regards
Jonathan Reid

It would be valuable, but not my kind of project.

Michael

Well, it was worth a try. Thank you for the response.

Does anyone know of any resources worth checking out that deal with this sort of topic?

Jonathan,
Have you tried to contact Bob Singh at Singh-Ray? I used Singh-Ray grads and never had a problem with magenta cast. Since transitioning to digital only, I've used them only on a few occasions but never experienced cast. A couple of years ago we ordered 2 or 3 polarizers from Singh-Ray and upon reception they presented scratches (very faint scratches but scratches anyway), we contacted them and they immediately offered to replace them. The new ones were perfect.
As for doing a comparison, I remember that a review of different polarizer filters was made but I cannot find that web site anymore. I'll let you know if my memory recovers some bits...

That said, if you lost "faith" in a brand, then use another one as there's many good ones. Just make sure they have a return policy so you can send the articles back if you're not satisfied.

Thanks for the suggestion Francious. I may have come across as overly critical of Singh Ray. I love my filters. They do not always give the magenta cast and when they do, its when I have stacked them.

I would still love to know who makes the best:
1. Polarizer
2. Grad
3. ND

I would also like to know how useful special effect polarizers are, like the warming polarizer and singh-ray's gold N blue polarizer.

Its not cheap buying them from SA and also not practical to return them.

Steve Kossack seemed to use filters a lot more than Michael in the early Video Journals, including the Singh Ray gold & blue polarizer. He may be a good source of such knowledge:

www.stevekossack.com

I hardly use filters at all anymore (other than very occasionally a polarizer or 6-stop ND), but:

1) I've always found Heliopan the best Polarizer with B+W a close second.

2) I *never* found any grads that were truly neutral, but settled on Tiffen *glass* versions in the Cokin P size. These were cheaper than the Singh Ray versions, though slightly warm-yellow which was more desireable for my applications (landscapes at low sun angles) than something with a green or blue cast. Living with a magenta cast would be my second choice to yellow.

3) Again, I find Heliopan to be very neutral, but B+W is also quite excellent.

In my experience ND Grads can produce a magenta cast when the image is overexposed. If you expose right or underexpose, it's no problem.

I'm not the only one; this characteristic is mentioned in "The Making of Landscape Photographs" by Charlie Waite.

I'm talking about film here, Fuji Velvia. With digital I hardly use the grads because they're so easy to apply afterwards in Photoshop.

I use the cheap Cokins, and when exposed correctly they don't show a color cast.


Gerard Kingma
www.kingma.nu

Jonathan,

to check whether or not a PL filter produces a cast, you can probably poceed the following way:

1. Take one RAW exposure of a kodak grey card at mid day in daylight without filter,

2. Add the filter on the lens and take the same image in RAW as well,

3. Develop the 2 images in a RAW developper like RSP, neutralize the first image by white clicking on it,

4. Copy the white balance value to the second image, and check the RGB values, if they are not neutral, then there is a cast resulting from the filter.

Cheers,
Bernard

Thanks for all the help everyone - I must say, this was one of my first ennquiries on this forum and I'm very surprised how helpful and knowledgable everyone seems.

Thanks again.

Regarding the comment about the polarizer. I can live with a cast if its applied perfectly evenly throughout the scene such as an ND filter, but a polarizer does not necessarily apply the effect throughout the scene.

John,

Are you referring to an actual color cast or the polarization effect? With wide angle lenses the amount of polarization will change across the field of view - with polarization increasing as you approach a 90 deg (perpendicular) angle from the sun.

I use Singh ray's LB warming polarizer which is about 2/3rds stop faster than traditional polo filters. I haven't experienced a color cast yet in limited use.

Paul