Customer Reviews

Tiffen 58mm Linear Polarizer Glass Filter

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a very well made filter. Glass with metal ring.
Thin, so it doesn't cause to much of a problem with vignetting when shooting with your zoom lens at wide angle settings.
Overall I am very satisfied. Great value for a well made filter. This IS a circulating polorizing filter. Does a great job at capturing those blue skies and filtering out reflections in water, glass and uv rays. No photographer should be without this lens.

For me, the principal consideration in a polarizer filter is the overall tone, tiffen offers a very neutral tone, very close to the high quality hoya filters, but half or less in price. The assembly maybe has a cheap feel because their uses a non very polished aluminium frame painted (or coated/anodized?) in black, and the treads are non perfect also, but in the optical im very happy with the results, glass, perfect effect (some polarizers doesn't do their job almost at all) and a very neutral tone to keep colors like the original scene. Sorry about my bad english, my mother tongue is spanish.

I purchased the 46mm linear polarizer for my Panasonic FZ28. The fit between the two elements is loose and moves on it's own sometimes. It is also too thick because it causes vignetting in the corners at wide angles.

This is a linear polarizer, as opposed to a circular polarizer that people usually buy for SLRs, so this is somewhat of a specialized review.

I wanted a linear polarizer since by stacking two and rotating them relative to each other, you can block some or all of the light transmitted, like a variable neutral density filter. With good polarizers, this works great. When the filters are at 90 degrees to each other, no light is transmitted at all. But with these Tiffens, very little light was blocked when crossing them at 90 degrees. Bottom line: the polarization ratio of these filters is very weak, meaning that these polarize light only a little bit. See similar comments about the 77 mm Tiffens.

I bought this to construct a variable neutral density filter in combination with a circular polarizer. It turns out that the polarization ratio of this filter is only about 20:1, which is significantly less than the cheap CPL I was going to pair it with. While this is OK for uses against clouds and reflections, it means the for a neutral density filter you can only get down about 4 stops.
In terms of build quality it is fine. It would be nice if the ring were a bit narrower, as it vignettes slightly at 18mm on an APS-C camera.

I compared this Tiffen Linear Polarizer to a Cokin Linear Polarizer on my Olympus e-p3. The Tiffen seems to lose about 1.5 stops of light compared to the Cokin which imposed a 2 stop light loss. I had no trouble focusing on high-contrast targets with either polarizer using my e-p3 (it has no mirrors or beam-splitters).

Using a third polarizer (threaded for astronomy use), I tested the polarization strength of both using the camera's light meter. Using spot-metering, i hand held the second polarizer at the angle yielding the least light transmission. While using aperture priority mode, i compared the shutter speeds. I found the Tiffen to be 40x weaker than the Cokin. This metering measured number was also confirmed by a substantially weaker ability to cut reflections. On flat surfaces, i was left wanting the Tiffen to cut a bit more glare. On water, the region rendered as transparent was too small for my tastes (even using a 90mm equiv lens).

I was curious if this weaker polarization would allow use of wider angles of sky shots (without inducing weird gradients in the sky). In fact, the sky gradients, though still apparent, were indeed more gradual and thus more tolerable. However, the 37mm caused vignetting in the corners on the wide end (28mm equiv) while using the kit lens on the e-p3. The Tiffen's easy to turn filter rim is a bit too long.

With regards to color rendering, the Tiffen seemed superior. The Cokin polarizer rendered colors slightly desaturated and slightly warmer than the Tiffen. A very slight vintage look from the Cokin (my Cokin really is vintage, so perhaps i should not be surprised). They were very close, but the Tiffen was definitely better.

My recommendations:
If you are looking for a polarizer to cut strong reflections/glare, purchase another brand. The effect you will get will be stronger.
If you are looking for a polarizer for shots that include a lot of sky (i.e. pushing the wide end of what can use a polarizer for), consider purchasing a Tiffen. You will be happy with the color rendering. I recommend buying a larger filter and using a step-up ring to avoid vignetting at wide focal lengths. For the micro four thirds system, a 52mm size should be large enough, though it would be nice to hear from someone with a 24mm equiv lens to confirm.

It is really too bad Tiffen does not sell two linear polarizers, clearly labeled strong and weak or perhaps telephoto and wide. Two stars reflect the failure to label this product as a weak polarizer and the vignetting at wide angles.

The product was received promptly and in great condition. It was easy to install on the lens and it's fit and finish were great. The pictures on my digital camera improved tremendously during daylight hours and I'm very pleased with the results.

Bought this for our DSLR. Now we can take pictures of things behind glass with little or no reflection in photo.

I have both this and a circular polarizing filter. And both appear to work fine with my D60 even with auto focus and setting it to an automated (child or sports for example) setting. I might be missing something, but the photos look great with both filters.

It reduces polarization as it should and rotates freely for you to adjust the amount of filtration. Just as advertised. Doesn't come with a carrying pouch or anything, you'll need that, and probably some cleaning wipes to clean off dust and particles after taking out of the package. I do wish there was a little bit more tension in the rotating ring, but it's not too bad.