We were thinking about putting a polarizing filter onto the camera to not only protect the lens, but for the obvious benefits involving glare and also the colour enhancement.

When "luxury" funds are limited, it is very hard to justify spending $40-$50 on a PL when we can see some that look very good, on Ebay, for only $6. But commonsense tells you the quality is not there.

For our basic level of learning and taking photos, would we actually be able to see any difference in a photo taken using a cheap PL compared to the more expensive brands? Obviously we aren't entering major comps and stuff like that but we do still want to take a good image and it would really annoy me if we took a great photo that got spoilt by using a crap lens.

Are photos taken with cheap lens filters that obvious?