Using Circular Polarizer (CPL) Filters and Photographing Cars

This has been my most challenging video to make. The topic is nuanced! There's no one answer that solves everything, and even if there were, it would still be hard to describe, because a CPL filter doesn't have an indicator on it, or a setting that you can reference. There's no listicle that will make this easy. 

I almost called this "Circular Polarizers and Cars: Here’s What We Know," to make light of how abstract and hard to articulate this can be. But instead, I've combined many examples, and all my experience, and tried to put together a coherent and thorough video on this topic. I am hopeful that my efforts to put this into words will help you understand CPL filters a little better, and enable you to take better photos with them.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:51 What is a CPL Filter?
2:58 When Reflections are Bad
3:55 The Good Reflections
5:48 In Practice
7:06 When Not to Use a CPL Filter
8:15 Every Situation is Different
9:23 Outro

Polarizer at minimum in environment with distracting reflections

Polarizer at maximum in environment with distracting reflections

Leave a comment