Hi,
Well, to answer your question directly I'd say :
get a polarizer (circular one (to avoid AF problems)), to enhance skies clouds, color of vegetation foliage (anything that reflects light)..., improve water (rivers and lake - but not as dramatically as sky & clouds). Remember that polarizer effect depends in which direction your shoot (90° from the sun is the most effective).
For haze : well the earlier you take pictures, the better it's... The dryer and colder the weather is, the better are pictures. In a warm day there can be a lot of haze on the path between your lens and a far away mountain just several hours after the sunrise. Best anti haze filter is warming filter (orange ones). Because it's the complementary color of blue it helps to "cut through" haze (physicaly - not like postprocessing with a software), by eliminating blue, and keep details in far away subjects (mountains...). The drawback is that it warms up all the picture. So you need to neutralize it later (software), automaticaly, or decrease color temperature if shot in raw.
I can't say a lot of things about UV filter. I'm not sure but I think it was important to have one on when films were used, because UV radiations could be recorded by the film, or react with emulsion, and then it could contribute to decrease sharpness & contrast of the image. Digital sensors are not that much sensitive to UV. So I'm not sure it would be useful for haze. Moreover : you can see haze with your eyes so it's visible (blue) light, so you need to eliminate one part of the visible light spectrum. Most efficient is warming filter I told you about previously. (for a lot more informations : read B+W Filter Handbook, see the link below).
What I think : for protection : buy protective transparent filter (scratch dust...), but UV is fine for this purpose too.
For haze : use warming filter, then neutralize colors later (software). (and get out early in the morning 8o) ).
Some Warming+Polarising filter exist (B+W), but I think it's more clever to buy them separately and screw them, one on the other.
Read also what follow :
Once you've several lenses which cover the range of focal length you need, filter can be added to increase your creativity. Enhance beauty of a scene ((color filters, polarizers...), remove climatic effects which decrease final image quality (anti haze (orange ones)), reveal what eye (and brain) cannot see (Neutral Density filters, polarizers...)...
I suggest you've a look here to judge by yourself the effect of several filters :
http://www.naturephotographers.net/arti ... 006-1.html
Gold n Blue is a very interesting filter too, but expensive, and it's better to start with normal (circular) polarizer.
download and have a look to "B+W Filter Handbook" there :
http://www.schneideroptics.com/info/sti ... graphy.htm
it's an interesting read to understand what filters can bring to your photographs.
Hope it helps,
See you
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