Quantaray Filters (Ritz)
 

Has anyone had any good experiences with Quantaray filters from Ritz? im going on a shoot monday and i will prob have to shoot thru a car window for a few shots so i suppose getting either a linear or circular polarizer would be good to get rid of reflections. I don't believe ill have time to order a better filter online I read one post on here saying that Quantaray is made by Hoya? but is pretty cheap and could cause a strange tint. Im only anticipating shooting a few 4-5 second clips thru glass. their linear pol is pretty cheap (bout $15 i think) and their circ is bout $27.

I've had personal experience with the Quantaray filters (through my photography students). Very simply, they do not work. Hold one up to the sky and rotate the filter in your hand. You should see the blue sky lighten and darken as you rotate the filter. The numerous Quantaray filters I've seen (probably several dozen just in the last year) do not polarize the light. The sky will not darken. If you've already purchased one, take it back, Ritz has a very generous 30 day return policy.

Try Tiffen, Hoya, B+W, Cokin, or any of the camera manufacture filters (Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta etc.).

The Hoya or Cokin circular polarizer should only cost about $18 US. I just bought a Hoya 52mm---$24 Canadian.

ok i purchased a tiffen circ polarizer 58 mm today, turns out we do have one photo shop in town, but they dont know squat about video nor do they sell any DV stuff. it ended up running about $43 w/tax. should i keep the filter on for an entire shoot or should i only use it when shooting thru car window glass? the guy there said it would darken things a bit which whould help if it was a sunny day. here are a couple clips from a test run we did at a coworkers house.

http://visualstudios.org/vbass/testclip.wmv

this is just a few quick cuts of a training vid i'm producing....
this was shot on a very bright day which posed some issues in getting the best pic possible. im worried when i go to shoot this on tues in VA beach with actual soldiers about the conditions of weather. if its extremely bright then i think ill try and move the shoot indoors. if its not too bright im going to try and keep it outdoors, an overcast day seems to be ideal. what i may try and do is pick up some ND 4x4 gels (.3 and .6, could double up if needed) or something to put on the windows of vehicle if to keep backlight from drowning out the subject. this was shot in a suburban, but the actual vehicle we will do it in will be a military fullsize tractor trailer type vehicle. in the suburban i had the convenience of opening up the sunroof inner cover to allow more light in, also the military truck will have a big window directly behind the driver seat. (ie: shoot some thru front or rear window prob=circ polarizer)

im open to advice, this is my first super important shoot and my boss seems pretty impressed with the cut versions of these so far, but i want to ensure i can make this flow well.