Polarizers

[J. Patric Dahlen]

How are polarizing filters made? I've seen many pages on how they work, but non about how they are made. I've read about polarizers as a "very fine metallic grid", but it's impossible to see a grid, and if it is so very fine, the technique must be at least as advanced like the manufacturing of modern computer processors. Yet polarizing filters have been made for 80 years or more.

[Deepak Kumar]

Only Singh Ray LB Polarizer with warming

Or

B/W circular Polariser with or without warming.



These are very expensive so invest once in the best filters,


Because time spent in shooting is even more expensive.

Deepak

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

Be generous to yourself and get a Heliopan. You won't be sorry.

[Brian Ellis]

For LF photography I use linear polarizers, unwarmed, uncoated, unanything. I have a huge collection of filters because I never liked using adapter rings. I have at least one each major brand of polarizers - Hoya, Tiffen, B+W, Heliopan plus several other less common brands such as Contax and Pentax. If there's a dime's worth of difference among them in terms of the final print I've never noticed it. I couldn't begin to go back to my photographs and tell which ones were made with which brand of polarizer (or any other type of filter for that matter). I do like the B+W filters but not because I think they produce a different or better photograph, I just like the feeling of quality they have when they're handled.

Joe English published the results of his testing of numerous different polarizers used to make color photographs of the same scene in the final issue of the old "Camera and Darkroom" magazine. IIRC, none were totally "neutral" in the sense that the identical colors were reproduced with and without the filters. All produced some form of color cast though I'm not sure it always would have been noticeable or objectionable without side-by-side comparisons with the unfiltered version of the photograph. This is all from memory, I no longer have that issue of the magazine, so if someone does have it and if I've misstated anything please feel free to correct me.