I recently bought the Nikon 50mm 1.2 ais, but need to cut about 2 stops to shoot in the sun. Does anyone have these filters and can tell me how many stops they cut?
A .6 ND filter will cut 2 stops. A polarizing filter will typically only be 1 - 1.5 stops at the most but cheap ones may be more. Polarizers are not meant to reduce light transmission.
As Cramej said, you don't need a polarizerfilter, you want an ND filter. Completely different sort of filter. Poralizers cut light, but aren't intended to do so, ND's are intended to cut light.
you need to be aware that a polarising filter is not the same as a neutral density(ND) filter.
An ND filter will stop as much light as it is calibrated for across everything in the image.
A polarising filter works differently and will stop differing amounts of light depending on the angle of the light and how much you have rotated it. On an slr you can see the effect as you rotate it. And a polarising filter is designed mostly for stopping reflections such as from water but will also darken some skies but not all.
So first of all decide which kind of filter you are really looking for and know that a polarising filter has varying effects depending on subject and reflections in the subject and how you set it.
I recently bought the Nikon 50mm 1.2 ais, but need to cut about 2 stops to shoot in the sun. Does anyone have these filters and can tell me how many stops they cut?
Hey, I meant that I would like to shoot at 1.2 in sunlight and in order to do so I would need to cut about two stops of light.
Thanks to everyone else for the tips regarding ND filters but I was just trying to save some money/kill two birds with one stone as it's nice to have a polfilter as well (the first I buy usually) and I thought I'd heard that some cut 2 stops of light.