Cpol filter for snow or not ?

[dbiggs]

I am lending my 300d to my mother next week to go to Churchill and photgraph some polarbares and my problem is this, she nows not much about photography and I don't know wether to put the filter on my sigma 18-125 lens and leave it on there because she will not be able to (and I don't want her to) change leanes and filters. She will be using the camera in the non creative zones on full auto what do you think.

[Curtis N]

I'd skip it.

Polarizers need to be rotated for desired effect, and that effect will be different, depending on the angle to the sun. If not used with care, they just rob 2 stops of light without doing much good.

She'll have enough to figure out, using a zoom lens on a DSLR.

[robertwgross]

In Churchill, the polarizer might be handy if she were trying to get lots of sky in the shots. On the other hand, if she is shooting mostly some animal on the ground, I don't think it would help much at all.

Suggestion: Tell her to leave it off. However, she might decide to take some nice landscape shot with plenty of sky, so give her a diagram of how to use a polarizer. Show the sun angle and show her how to rotate the filter to get a result. It should take about two minutes to teach her how to do it.

---Bob Gross---

[Mark_48]

Another point to consider is, does the front of the lens rotate when zooming or focusing which would change the effect of the polarizer with possibly unpredictable results. A couple of my Canon lenses do this, not sure about Sigma's line.
Maybe a filter for lens protection, UV or Sky 1A. May help reduce the bluishness in the snow shots as well.