PBase

Looking at getting a couple of new polarizers. Any brands to stay away from? or to look for?

Stay away from cheap ones. Polarizers have a layer of polarizing film between two pieces of glass. Cheap ones seem to be mor prone to the film distorting. B+W is good, Tiffen, Hoya, and the like are good, but get the better ones in their lines.

My tendency is to buy the very best I can afford, multicoated, slim profile so they will not vignette on my wides. My approach is simple, I paid very good money for my lenses, so there is no reason to put a cheap piece of glass in front of it. If the lenses you have show any flaws, a cheap filter will only tend to make them worse. I agree with the previous post, B&W (expensive), Hoya (top shelf, they make two price points..) and Tiffen are my usual choices. I avoid store brands, Quantaray etc, requardless of who they claim makes the filter. Finally remember for Digital you want to buy circular polarizers, for film it shouldn't matter....
Just my .02,
Chris

I am not such a huge fan of Tiffen filters, but that could just be me.
I either get Hoya or B&W for most of my UV & Polorizers.
For my Split ND filters I use the Singh-Ray hard step filters http://www.singh-ray.com/. I want to get their variable ND filter when I can afford it. Seem like a cool idea to have 2-8 stops of variable ND in one filter!

Hoya is made by Tiffen though I'm not sure that they use the same specs etc. for the different brands. Singh-Ray is also very good (the best ones I own) as is Heliopan. A good test for polarizers is to have two of the same model in hand, mount one on the other and rotate one of the polarizers - the less pattern formation the better the filter.

I've been pleased with Heliopan.