Mountain streams somehow always manage to cast a magical spell on me. They enchant me and I get pulled towards them. Before I know it, my camera is ready to capture their dancing flow and the finesse by which the water hops on the small rocks. I had one such moment some days back when I was driving through some hills in Kumaon region.
Polarizing Filters or simply Polarizers were second most used filters in the film era, first being the UV filters. Polarizers work on the principle of letting only one plane of light waves to pass through. Remaining planes of light waves are blocked. Earlier polarizers had a single polarizing layer. Then came the autofocus cameras. There were times when the angle of polarized light being let into the lens would not coincide with the autofocus sensors and autofocus used to fail. Circular polarizers were introduced. These had another plate after the polarizing layer to rotate the light. This reduced the problems with the auto-focus systems. Due to their construction method, the circular polarizers show the polarizing effect only when seen from ‘thread side’. When seen from the ‘groove side’ polarizing effect is not seen, instead just a color shift is visible.
(Polarizers in different sizes and thicknesses)
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