Which polarizer for Canon EF 16-35

imbg1990

I'm looking at the variety of circular polarizing filters available for the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM and the pricing goes from 30 bucks to over 400. I know putting a bad piece of glass in front of this lens this is counter-productive, but there is very little in the way of spec's to figure out which one is sufficient for it. Canon makes one, but there are others too. Any recommendations on what would be a good choice for this lens? I'm going to be using it on a 1.6x crop camera... does that factor into the choice at all?

Thanks
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ziggy53

Imbg1990, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I moved this to the Accessories forum, which is where things that accessorize lenses or cameras are discussed.

While a Canon EF 16-35mm, f2.8L USM is a super-wide lens on full-frame, it is only a wide-angle zoom on a crop 1.6x camera. That means that you are not as likely to have to worry about the filter vignetting the image at a wider angle of view.

I strongly suggest the Hoya HMC (Hoya Multi-Coated) filters. I have pretty much standardized on this brand and they test nicely on my lenses (although I don't have the Canon 16-35mm, f2.8L).

B+W coated filters are also very high quality.

http://www.2filters.com/ is a very good vendor for both brands.

If you should purchase a FF camera the recommendations would change, so check back here or do a search as we have discussed the issues before.

Art Scott

+1 for the ZIGMEISTER'S answers........yup thumb

craig_d

I agree with ziggy. I buy B+W MRC (multi-coated) filters as much as possible, but I have a few multi-coated professional-grade filters from Hoya and Sigma that are good too.

The 16-35 f/2.8L II is kind of an awkward beast to put a CP on, for three reasons:

1) Good 82mm CPs are bloody expensive;

2) You probably don't have any other lenses that take 82mm filters, so unless you really enjoy fooling around with step-up rings, you won't be able to use this filter on any of your other lenses;

3) The most common usage of CPs is to darken the sky and reduce reflected sunlight, which is problematic with a wide-angle lens because of the way a CP's effect on the sky varies with angle. Usually there is a sort of soft-edged dark band in the sky 90 degrees from the sun -- not a pleasant effect, though it can be interesting if it works into a composition just right. This is less of a problem at the 35mm end, but you probably have other lenses that cover that length. It's also a bit less of a problem on 1.6x, but 16mm on 1.6x is still only 25.6mm, roughly an 80 degree field of view.

If you have a particular type of usage for which you need a CP on a wide-angle lens, then by all means go ahead and get one, but if you're just thinking that you want CPs for every lens you own, you might want to lower the priority on this one. Just my two cents...