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Name: Mark W.
Status: Other
Age: 30s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: August 2003
Question:
I am interested in polarized lens as they apply to photography. I have been told that if you use a polarized filter that you do not need a "hood" to protect from "scatter" (reflections off other objects not perpendicular to the lens) light. I have also been told that the polarizer does not stop scatter light. Which is correct?


Replies:
A polarizing filter can be rotated to stop nearly all of the light polarized along any one axis, and it will in any case stop roughly half of unpolarized light. Reflected light is, in general, partially polarized -- the more grazing the reflection the greater the degree of polarization. Scattered light usually is not polarized.

Tim Mooney


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