Polarizes work on cars because the light is reflecting from the _paint,_ not the steel underneath the paint. It works on the painted surface of the car, but not on the chrome surfaces. Polarizers also help to reduce hot spots on dark, shiny skin and eyeglasses. The angle of reflection is also important. The polarizer most effectively cuts polarized light that's making a 90-degree bounce from the light source to the lens. Polarizers used to have an index mark on the rotating edge (I noticed they don't seem to have that anymore). If you turned the polarizer so that the index pointed to the light source, you would be at the point of greatest polarized light cut-off. Back when many cameras, such as TLRs, used a different lens for viewing, they needed that mark to set the filter. I tested my polarizers with a sidelight to determine what that point is and marked the edge myself, because it still comes in handy sometimes. That 90-degree effect goes for the sky as well. Polarizers work most effectively to darken the sky when the sun is at a right angle to the camera lens. If the sun is directly behind or in front of the camera, it doesn't work well to darken the sky. That's why polarizers create an unevenly darkened sky with ultra-wide lenses; the lens captures so much of the sky, you can see the variance. There is a scientific difference between "circular" polarization and "linear" polarization that has nothing to do with the shape of the glass. Earlier polarizers more than 50 years ago, even the ones cut round, did "linear" polarization. But SLR and DSLR cameras that used semi-mirrored beam-splitters for metering (those hit the market in the latter 60s) did not work with linear polarization. That's why "circular" polarization was invented. I think mirrorless cameras can use either linear polarizers or circular polarizers because they don't use semi-silvered mirrors for metering. Linear polarizers are cheaper...but there may not be anyone making them anymore. Fun fact: A variable ND filter is just two stacked polarizers.

@AnthonyToglife

8 ай бұрын

👍🏾👍🏾

@ChillWill1238

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, that’s right. Here’s a simple non-technical explanation:”Polarizers are placed in front of your camera lens, and work by filtering out sunlight which has been directly reflected toward the camera at specific angles..” light itself is not polarized, so it makes no difference what the surfaces, such as metal.

@AnthonyToglife

8 ай бұрын

@@ChillWill1238 you may want to check your source because there's some inaccuracies in your comment.

@kirkdarling4120

8 ай бұрын

@@ChillWill1238 Non-metallic surfaces do polarize the light they reflect. Those reflections are light that is polarized...the waves vibrate on one plane. The polarizer filter removes all the light except that vibrating on a single plane, so they polarize the light as well. So, let's say in a particular situation, unpolarized light (which is vibrating in all planes perpendicular to its axis) strikes a non-metalic reflective surface like glass. The glass reflection is polarized light...vibrating in one plane. All the light that was vibrating in the other planes has been removed (which is part of the reason why the reflection from a non-metallic surface is not as bright as the light that struck it). That reflection strikes the polarizer, which is designed as well to block all light except in one plane. The reason all polarizers require an increase in exposure is because they're blocking most of the light...they're only letting through the light vibrating in one plane. If the orientation of the reflected polarized light matches the orientation of the polarizer, it gets through. But if you reorient the polarizer against the orientation of the reflected polarized light, the reflected polarized light gets blocked. But the polarizer is still passing the light that's matching its orientation.

Awesome filter and video!

@AnthonyToglife

8 ай бұрын

Thank you Agnetha!

Good video. You took something we all kind of know and really summed it up and added to our knowledge. Gonna start calling you Professor.

@AnthonyToglife

8 ай бұрын

Ha, I like that title lolol. Thanks friend!

I really like how CPL can help with smoothing the skin.

@AnthonyToglife

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, I wish I would have thought about that when I was writing notes for this vid. I don't typically use a CPL when I do portraits so it didn't cross my mind.

Good video. But I must take exception to one point about why cars reflect polarized light. It is not because steel is not really a metal. It is a metal and you showed a stainless steel pot earlier to demonstrate that a CPL does not work with that. It is the gloss finish on a car that is creating the reflection, and THAT creates the polarization, same as for a piece of glass such as a window. As for angles, that really doesn't matter, it is reflected light that becomes polarized, whether the light source is in front of you, behind, or to the side. You actually demonstrate this in your video without realizing it. :) The other thing to be aware of is that a CPL can give very unexpected results on a wide angle lens. Do a video where you use one on say a 16-35mm lens and see what happens at 16mm. :) Peace, bro! Edit: Having read all of the post by @kirkdarling4120 I will defer to them on the finer points.

@AnthonyToglife

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, it was a brain fart on the car thing, lol. As to the direction, it absolutely matters, and I’m not sure what part of the video you’re referencing, but I have a clip where I’m facing the sun and turning the polarizer and there’s minimal change. As a matter of fact, when I was recording all the clips for this vid, I had to keep rotating around to get the effect to be strong enough to be visible in the clip. And yeah, I’m aware of the wide angle. I originally recorded 5 scenarios where you don’t want to use a CPL filter (wide angle lenses being one of them), but that part didn’t make the video because it almost doubled the length of the overall video. 🤷🏾‍♂️