Lessons

Lesson Info

Lens Accessories: Filters

All right, So this whole section is on lens accessories or lens bling if you prefer that. And so there's a lot of different things that weaken use to maximize and accessorize our lenses to get the most out of them. And that is all in this category here. So what, we're gonna be talking about our not really that many different things. Just a few basic items. Filters, hoods, tripod mounts, extension tubes and extenders. So let's go ahead and get started with filters. So most all lenses are gonna have filter thread so that you can screw in an accessory filter, either for protection or for doing some sort of technical aspect to your photography. There are a variety of sizes, and sometimes canon and other manufacturers tend to make lenses of certain sizes that are more common than others. For instance, Ah, lot of the pro lenses are 77 millimeters in size, and it's very convenient when all of your lenses have the same filter size. And it's not a reason that I would buy ah, lands who it's got ...

the same filter sizes, my other lands. But it's a consideration knowing Okay, well, this is a different filter size, so I'm gonna need to buy a new, polarizing filter. And so it's just something to be aware of, it says. I say it's not a reason why you're gonna buy or not buy a particular lens. There are a small group of lenses that are typically in the very wide angle range that are sold bulbous and sticking out in the front that you cannot put filters on the front of them, at least not any sort of standard filters. There are sometimes aftermarket companies that will make special devices that will fit in front of a lens. But those are very unusual. You cannot screw filters in to these four lenses from Canon. Some of these lenses will have an option for putting in a rear gelatin filter, which is a plastic filter. And so this was more useful in the days of film and when they were using a color filter in there to change the color of the light for different types of light sources that you were working in. It's still in there, and it's possible that you could put a piece of neutral density film in there if you need it to darken the light coming through your lands. Optically, though, this is not the best way to work with filters on the lens. But with these white angles, there really is no other option. And the reason that it's hard is that it's not big enough for a piece of glass. And so it's just a very thin piece of it's almost like paper. It's a cellophane type material, and so it's an option on some of the wide angle lenses. Good. It's out there on some of the bigger lenses. The front opening is so large a giant UV or polarizing filter would be very, very expensive. And so they have droppin filters, and you can buy these smaller, droppin filters and put him in this little drawer system on the back of the lands. And this is something that you're going to find on the big white lenses 200 up to 800 millimeters. And so that's an easier way to deal with filtration on those type of lenses. For all the other lenses in between, you're gonna have options of different types of filters, and I'm just gonna talk about a few of the most popular types of filters. The first off is the UV filter, and so this is a protection filter for the front of the lens. Technically, the UV part is that it is filtering out some of the UV light, and that is light that we don't necessarily see with our own eyes. But our cameras were picking up, and this is allowing the the filter to block those sorts of light so that the light that we record in our camera is a little bit more similar to our own eyes. It can cut out some of the haze, but for the most part it's imperceptible. And the reason it's being used is for protection on the front of the lens. It's a bit of an insurance policy. Some people like using it. Some people don't like using it, and I am going to discuss this a little bit further in the lens maintenance section when I talk about protecting lenses with hoods and caps and filters, and so this is a discussion that we will continue later on in the class. One of the most useful filters that you can use is the polarizing filter. It's this very dark filter, and it impacts the light that is coming in your lands in an unusual way. There's many people who have polarised sunglasses, and if you tilt your head from side to side, you'll notice how it changes the reflections. And what it's doing is it is letting through some types of light and blocking other types of light, depending on the wavelength and the direction of the light. So this filter, unlike other filters that you just screw on and you leave nice and tight on the front of your lens. This one has a rotating collar that you're able to get out there with your fingers and turn it and see the adjustment that's being made. In fact, you don't even need to put this on your camera. You can just pick the filter up and look through it and see if it has an impact in the environment that you are currently in. Sometimes when you use this filter, you will see nothing happening. It depends on the light source in the direction that you are facing. So back here at Horseshoe Bend, we've seen a number of photos from here. Let's take a polarizer and move it in position to its maximizing polar easy notice what happens to the water down below will go back and forth couple times minimum polarizing. We're getting a lot of reflections of the sky and the clouds in the water. Question is, which do you prefer? Which do you like? There isn't a correct answer. It's just a matter of where you want it to be. This adds a little bit more contrast. Having that really dark water allows us to see in the water a little bit more clearly. Another example that I found that really showcases how well you can see into the water with this. So what do you see in the water here? And let's turn the maximum polarizing effect on, and now we can see those fish under the water surface much more clearly. Let's go back to minimum. Now we're seeing the reflections of the trees on the other side of the lake and go back to maximum. And so if you're shooting in water or through glass or any sort of subject that has a lot of reflections on it, that's where a polarizer can be very handy. So if you're gonna be out Doing whale watching on about Ah polarizer is something I would definitely want to bring along. But because it handles reflections, it's also good in many areas. So this is a short video clip, and you can see as I'm shooting these tulips. We saw the still photograph earlier in the class. How much turning that polarizer affects the light reflecting off of the side of these tulips, and it really increases the contrast of these and increases the saturation, which I think improves the photo in the Amazon. This giant leaf is reflecting a lot of white light from the canopy above Turn on the polarizer, and we're seeing Mawr, the true natural green of that leaf, and so can be very impactful, even in the forest. Another example without. And let's add the polarizer to it. A huge difference in the saturation that we're seeing. An area where it has a big impact is on blue sky. So this is a short video clip, and as I turned the polarizer, notice what happens to the sky. There we go. Nice dark blue. Notice the saturation in the colors of the columns. They get more saturated and so This is something that you will see right in the viewfinder while you are turning the polarizer. It also can have the effect of reducing the amount of Hayes. Look how much easier Mount Rainier can be seen by turning this into a maximum polarizing effect. Now the areas in which this is going to work are areas in which the sun is 90 degrees to your right or left, so you'll notice the light on Mount Rainier. It's lighter on the right hand side. This is a side lighting situation, so any time you have light coming from the side, it could be from the left side or the right side. It doesn't matter. That's when you're gonna get the strongest effect with a polarizer, and this has a very strong effect on that blue sky. But it doesn't have that much effect on the wheel itself. And so it could be very, very helpful filter for travel landscape in a lot of general outdoor photography, and so sometimes you're photographing in the sky just has no color to it, and the polarizer will help bring that color out very, very helpful. And I tend to be a little bit obsessed about shooting pictures with and without cause. I've been teaching classes and so I have tons of examples of what does it look with a polarizer and without, And every time I find a good example, I need to do this and it's I think it's helpful to do this just to restate to yourself how important this is. This is one of the most dramatic times where no polarizer look. What it looks like with the polarized isn't no photo shopping and stuff. This is just using a polarizer right where it has its greatest impact. As I say, I tend to get obsessed with shooting more and more photos of these. And so you get these really saturated nice colors and a lot of times you look with your own eyes and you see this nice blue sky. But you hold your camera up and you're just kind of like, Wow, this just doesn't look as good as I thought I did. In my mind, you had the polarizer onto it adds a little bit of color to it. You see those clouds again a little bit more clearly there. So the key thing on this is where is the sun and make a 90 degree turn? Okay. And so wherever the sun is, you're going to get very little impact in. So if we can turn on one of these cameras right in front, and so imagine you are the son, and okay, if that's where the sun is, I'm gonna get the greatest polarization right over here. So your 90 degrees to my side, I'm also gonna be able to look over here and get really good, polarizing. And so wherever the sun is, just do a little quarter turn, and that's we were going to get your maximum polarizing effect, John, I just want to pause and say, being in the field with you, this was my biggest. Ah ha. About using those types of filters was the 90 degree angle. So take note of that. It was always in the field, like, Wait, where is the where is the sun? Do I need the filter now or not? I mean, I still generate that. I still line myself up all the time. It's like, where is the sun? Okay, I'm gonna get my right shoulder with my left shoulder in line. Okay? Is there something over here that I can shoot? And you know, if I'm shooting this table here, I could shoot it here. But I'm not gonna get much polarization if you're the son. But if I can get the same shot in this angle, I'm gonna move myself in this position. And so sometimes the sun is setting and I'm looking at what can I look at in these two directions? Because that's where the best lights going to be. And I think, John, that just reiterates that it's not just about the tools but really knowing why and when to use them to get the effect that you want. So just true. Absolutely true. So here is a case where I did not use the polarizer correctly. Yes, you can incorrectly use the polarizer and it concern mess up your photos. All right, so what we've done here is we've polarized the left part of the screen, but the right part, we haven't because the sun is somewhere off to the right hand side. And so we need to be pointed 90 degrees and we're not really a full 90 degrees. And we're shooting with wide angle lens that is maybe seen almost 90 degrees and so polarizer czar. Very challenging to use, I would say, at less than 24 millimeters for a full frame camera. So if you have a 16 millimeter to 35 lens and you haven't set to 16 it's very challenging to polarize because you're grabbing such a wide swath of the sky. And unfortunately, I have actually a very large collection off bad, polarized image. This is an image that it does not haven't even blew across the sky. I love this color blue here. This is a beautiful blue, but it just fades away in tow kind of whiteness over here that doesn't look nearly as good. And so I tried doing a video, and so here's a video of I'm not pointing the camera in the right direction. Now, granted, it's pretty hard to move around the mountain to get to the other so height. And so it's just not an option of using a polarizer in this particular case, and so some places it works. In some places, it does it. Where is the light coming from? Can you describe it straight off to the right hand side Let's add a polarizer, and we have a nice strong impact in this case. So that's an excellent case when that sun is to the right and son to the left. So for the polarizer it's going to reduce those reflections. It's gonna increase saturation. It's gonna increase that blue in the sky. But there is a warning that comes with this. The reason you do not leave this on your lands all the time is that it takes about two stops of light. It varies depending on how you have it set exactly what polarizer you have on there, and so it is not an indoor filter. I think of it as an outdoor filter. There's exceptions to the rules, but if you're outside shooting pictures, it could be in the city. It could be in the nature. Doesn't matter. That's a potential time where it may be helpful, and generally I will put it on where and I know I need it and I'll leave it on for that period of shooting maybe a little bit longer. But then I'm gonna take it off normally, and I don't like to stack filters. And so if I am using a UV filter. I will take off the UV filter, put the polarizer on. I'll take the UV, put it wherever the polarizer was. That's a nice little slot to keep it, and I try only to use one filter at a time, something to be aware of for those who are using the wide angle lenses I mentioned before that its potential that you're going to shoot too wide of area of the sky. So using a 16 millimeter lands might not be the best thing with a polarizer, but sometimes it does work, and you do want to use it. Something to be aware of is that if your lenses so wide, you might actually see the filter on your front of your lands. And so they do make special slim filters, which are less thick now. The downside to these slim filters is that they have no threads on the front side, so you can't put a lens cap on him. And so that may or may not be an issue, depending on how you shoot. And so if you do have one of these lenses that go down to millimeters and below, it's generally recommended to get a slim filter. It really depends on the exact lens as to the design as to whether it needs it. But it's the safer option to dio. The's polarizer is can get stuck on the front of your lands, and filters in general can get stuck on the front of your lands. And it has to do with the fact is that their circular? And sometimes when you put him on you put him on too tight and you're squeezing them into a very slight oval shape and they work themselves in, and as you grab to take it off, you are grabbing it in a slightly different place than you grabbed it to put it on. And so you're squeezing the circle into an oval in the wrong place. And so the solution to getting a polarizer off and there is nothing I love more than somebody on one of our tours, saying, I've stuck my filter on and I can't get it up. Well, let me try. Let me try. I'm the guy that wants to open the jar of pickles, you know, if that's the same type of like that challenge and there's a number of tricks. And the first trick is to just change where you are holding your lens. So then sketches, squeezing it here, squeeze it over here, or squeeze it over here. Just move where your fingers are on the lens. The second option is get as many fingers on the lens so that you're not squeezing it into an oval. And we're talking about very small fragments of a millimeter that you're squeezing it into an oval the And so then if that doesn't work, then you move your hand to different positions on their and the final third trick, which is actually worked out very well for me is you need to put a little pressure as possible so that when you're touching it, you are barely touching it at all. And I found that that was the secret. I've been screened er and then just turn it and it comes right off. So some things just ease off and his little pressures you can it will come off, I mentioned before. The drop in filters for the polarizer is and for the big white lenses, and it's really cool because they have Polarizer is for this, which are the best type of polarizer because they're right next to the camera. You could really quickly easily adjust him. And all you do is just turn this little isle. And so I wish more lenses had these rear filters so that you could just drop these little tiny filters in in a Justin. See, you can use it on the big lenses. But for some reason, these little tiny polarizer is because they're in their special little drawer system are very expensive. All right, Next type of filter is the neutral density filter. And so this is gonna be used for achieving slower shutter speeds or preferred apertures or shallower depth of field. Those of you who shoot video. And if anyone out there shoots a lot of video, they're gonna probably have a number or a Siri's or a collection of indie filters because they're trying to shoot at shallower depths fields or particular shutter speeds. And filmmakers don't have as much leeway with shutter speeds as still photographer. So our needs air slightly different, but we are using some of the same equipment, but for slightly different reasons. All right, so you're out in the nature and you want to take a picture of a waterfall or some water running, and you want to shoot at a very slow shutter speed. And so let's just say we look through our camera were at 56 on the aperture and 100 25th of a second on the shutter speed. And we're thinking, now we want to really slow shutter speed. We want slow this up. So what are we gonna do is we're gonna change our aperture. stops down to f 32 in this case, which means we can go over to our shutter speeds and we can go down five stops, lower down to 1/4 of a second and get a nice, slow shutter speed. So this is something I do a lot of in our fundamentals of photography class. We're just going to a little bit of it here, but with the filter. But what if we want to go slower than 1/ 2nd? Well, we are tapped out here. We can't go any slower than f 32. And so this is where we can enlist the help of ah three stop neutral density filter, which will make the picture darker when we put it on. And we've talked about the fraction, so we know we don't want to shoot it. F 32. We don't need to shoot it at 32 for image quality in this scene, we would prefer to be at a better image quality, maybe a F 16 where we're gonna get less diffraction. And now we still have. We had three stops. That was, too. We come back over to our shutter speeds and now we can get ourselves one stop slower on the shutter speeds. Now, what if we had a four stop? Well, then we can go down to a full second. What if we had a five stop now? We could go down to two seconds. And with each of these changes, the water is changing slightly. Now, the Indy filter that I use is a six stop indie filter so I can go six stops lower and I could get all the way down 24 seconds rather than I think, where we were back up around 1/4 of a second when we started. And so how much of a difference is there? Let's go back to the no filter quarter second. So I'm not getting quite the swirl, the same swirl of water. But I'm also shooting it up 32. So if I add back in the Indy filter, I get to shoot at F 16 which is sharper. So I'm gonna get a sharper picture and I get this blur that is a little bit different that maybe I prefer. And so it just gives me some more options if I'm shooting this type of shot out there. And so here's an example of using a an extremely long shutter speed longer than you would normally be able to get in a daylight situation. And so if you are trying to get these blurry waterfall shots working under fairly normal daylight situations, it's very helpful. If you're trying to do it under bright sunlight, it is absolutely necessary. There is no way that you are going to get this shot without an nd filter on there. There's just too much light, and the indie filter can really help you out. So another little example. Let's run through some shutter speeds and apertures because people would like to see the compromises that you have to make. So there's a waterfall City park. You want to shoot a picture of it, but you want a really slow shutter speed. The camera is inherently giving U. S. A. to 50th of a second at F 11. Nice, good in between city, and you're thinking, Well, I better stop my aperture down so that I could get a slower shutter speed. And so we went four steps there. We got to go four steps on our shutter speed down to 1/30 of a second 30th of a second. Yeah, that looks pretty blurry, but what if I want something quite a bit more? Well, let's add in a six stop indie filter, which is gonna make everything dark. And now we can go down six stops on our shutter speed all the way down to two full seconds, and that has a distinctly different look than our previous shots. So let's take a look where we started off at, which was 2/50 of a second. We slowed it down to 1/30 of a second, and then we added the Indy filter to get all the way down to two full seconds now this is available in many different stops, not just a six stop. But I have to say that I have. I bought a six stop and I really like it. I'd do it again if I had to buy the number of stops because there's different options out there. So shooting water moving with those really slow shutter speeds can be a lot of fun. Here is probably the best waterfall I've seen. This is Tangle falls up in Banff National Park in Canada. Beautiful, multi layered falls. And I was using the ND filter here to get the shot because this shot is a six second exposure and it's right next to the road. Anyone can park there and shoot it just super easy. So the neutral density filter this just simply dark filter. Neutral means it has no color to it. We're not adding any sort of colors to it. Density just means it's dark. There's a number of manufacturers that make these. It is a little bit confusing as to how dense is this? How dark is this? And so the simplest way to think about it is how many F stops does this change? The exposure. Sometimes they measure these in optical density, where 0.3 is equal toe one stop. So I have one that is 1.8 in the optical density. Sometimes it will be an exposure factor, which actually means it takes 64 times as much light to get the right exposure when shooting with one of these. And so you can kind of refer back to this slide as to how dense is it? You basically want to ask? What's the reduction for still photographers? It just doesn't make much sense doing one into its just not enough change for a cinematographer. They might need it because they need to be very particular about getting to pitching certain shutter speeds. But I think something in the 3 to 10 range. I'm not a big fan of the variables. They tend to have a little bit of color shift to them. But you know, that may change with different brands and new models that come out. I like the versatility of this, but optically not quite as good as just choosing one has one particular setting to it. So that's something for you. Nature photographers out there, another type of filter that is very helpful for people. Photographing a variety of types of landscapes and cityscapes is the graduated neutral density filters. So we just talked about the neutral density filter. The graduated one graduates from having a dense area to a light area, and this is to darken the skies so that we can see more detail in the sky, along with what is typically a darker landscape. Thes filters, most notably, are not round. You do not screw these in, and the reason is is because they have a dividing line and you don't necessarily want that dividing line in the same spot all the time. You want to be able to adjust it up and down, and so they make these in a rectangular filter, and these were gonna work in a filter system on the front of your camera. So what's gonna happen is you'll have an adapter, you'll have a bracket, and then you can put this in there and you could move it up and down according to the composition of where the horizon is and where you need it. And that's the way it's supposed to be done. The way that I actually use it most of the time is just handheld. It's just a lot quicker. The holder gets to be kind of big and I often switching lenses, which means I gotta switch holder on all the lenses and it gets cumbersome and it's just a lot faster. Just hold it in front, get my quick shots and be done and on to the next shot. And so here's a good example of in the foreground. I have some flowers. OK, nice, pretty flowers. And look at this magnificent sunset in the background. Isn't that a great sunset? Let's try a different exposure and okay, there's our sunset, but we need a completely different exposure in order to get this. And in this situation, I, of course, want the best of both worlds. I want to see the flowers and I want to see the sunset. So I set my camera for the flowers because this is the clear part of the filter. And now I'm gonna take this filter, and I'm just going to kind of bring it down so that it darkens the sky appear. Now this technique is also available using multiple photos. So if you took two photos wanna teach? You could then go into a photo shop and spent two hours blending them together. And doesn't that sound like a lot of fun? You could actually do a better job of it, because I have technically darken this hillside, which I know a lot of you are saying, Oh, look at that Hillside over there doesn't look so good. I darken that hillside a little bit more than this is darkened down here. But this is a simple, quick way that gets it done in the field. You get to see it in the field and if it works or not, So it's a very effective technique that a lot of photographers use so that they can get exposure ranges from different areas all in one shot. So without the nd filter, let's go ahead and add an indie filter on there. Now we can see just a little bit more color in our sky. Very subtle adjustment. So any time you see lots of detail in the sky, that is probably where a photographer has used an indie filter. So without the Indy filter, let's add a little indie filter. Add a little bit more saturation to that sky by simply making it darker. When you make areas of the sky darker, you're typically going to be adding saturation, those truth from of most any other area and so just a little bit of help here. In this case, the sky is mostly blowing out. We don't really see hardly any detail. Let's add some detail to the sky, but we don't need to change the exposure everywhere else in the photograph. So here is a really necessary place where, without it it's just a throwaway photo. And so any time you see a photograph of a mountain in the sun and some flowers in the shade, yes, definitely. It's either a multi shot technique, but it's probably a neutral density filter that has been used so that they can balance the vastly different levels of light in those two areas. Now these are made by a number of different manufacturers, and they have a number of different ways of making them for instance, a to stop on a three stop of the ones that I currently own. This is a to stop darker. This is a three stop darker depends on the situation. How much light I need to balance. They do make him in one stop. I don't know that they make him enforced up. They also have different graduated levels where you could have a soft graduation where you could have a hard line and a number of other ones that meet very particular needs. But these were some of the most common. And so you're going to use these for darkening bright skies, compressing that overall total range so that it's something that your camera can actually handle. And there is the whole world of HDR, which we're not even gonna touch on in here. High dynamic range photography where you're shooting multiple photos. But you can't shoot multiple photos of things moving because they move in there in a different position when you shoot the 2nd 3rd and fourth shot. And so this case, if you're trying to get it in a single shot, it's a better system for doing that type of photography. Close up lenses are not filters. They want toe. Make sure that you understand this is not a filter. It's a lens that you screw on the front, but it kind of fits in that category of it looks like a filter. It screws onto the front of the lands, and what this does is it enables you to focus up closer, and Canon has to Siri's of these. One of them is designed for lenses 72 300. Another couple of them are designed for 30 to 1 35 We have plus two Diop Tres and Plus four Diop Tres, which is a little bit closer up. But they are separate, depending on which lens you want to get them for, and then they have them in different filter sizes. And these I have not used, uh, just. They've always had a bit of a reputation for being a little bit soft in the corners, but they are small. They're inexpensive, way toe enable you to focus closer. And so it's a potential that these air gonna work out for some people because they meet their basic needs for it. So the D in this whole 500 d means it has two elements, which means it doesn't have as much chromatic aberration as the earlier versions, which were just one element. Ah, slight downside is that you cannot focus to infinity, becomes a close up lens at that time, and so this is probably the third option. When going into Macro, I would choose a macro lens. I would choose extension tubes, which we're going to talk about in a moment, and this would probably be the third option. The other problem I don't like about this is I end up with lenses with different filter sizes and these air not cheap. I mean, they're 75 100 bucks or so, and you would need one for each lens that you want to use. And so it doesn't fit a lot of people's needs. I don't see a lot of people using these out there, but it might fit somebody's needs. Who said, You know what? I have one lands. I just need to get a little bit closer with this one lens. One of the nice things about this is that it does not change your exposure, and so you can add this on your lands. And it's the same aperture, same F stop and same light gathering ability in the lance. So interesting option in there. So maybe we'll do a little check in on questions. Perfect. John, you know that there are always lots of questions on filters. So one of the questions that came in from DNA photography and had a vote as well some votes. You had an image of the clay building with water in front, so that kasbah in Morocco when you turn the polarizer, the sky went nice and blue, and the reflection in the water stayed reflected. How did that happen? So people were thinking that that the polarizer would reduce the reflection in the water. But that didn't happen. Yeah, I think it would have reduced the reflect. Well, if you recall the original photo of the fish in the lake, what was the light reflecting? As camera would look down on the lake, it was reflecting what was on. So I'll do it sideways. So it's that angle of view right there, where, as in the Morocco are that was Morocco with light was coming from the side. There really wasn't anything to look at, and so I'll be honest with you. Sometimes when you're looking through these things, it's a little mysterious, and I would be incorrect to say that I always knew what's happening all the time. Okay, uh, And so sometimes I'm looking through there, and I'm like, I wonder why I don't see anything here. And it generally has to do with how strong the light sources in the direction it's coming from. And I think in just that case, there really wasn't a strong light hitting it at the right angle because the sun was coming more from the right hand side rather than where the camera was pointed at. And so I don't know if that makes any sense. I hope it makes a little What do you mean? You don't always know what's going on wondering. Oh, Uh uh OK, so can you go back? Teoh, This is from kicks is why is there a problem with stacking filters? What does it do to the image? Okay, so if you recall back to the features and Technology section, every lens element is another potential for reflection and refraction and diffusion. And so we don't want to keep any more layers of glass in front of our lands as possible. So we're always trying to keep that as clean and as few elements is possible. And so one is not too much twos. Not that bad, But that's not what I would recommend. And so potential flare issues and just loss of image quality. Great. Thank you. And then just to kind of complete the section could you again review for people are asking about OK, tell us again. Outdoor photography. When dough I use the circular polarizer window. I used the nd filter and the linear polarizer filters. Okay, that dives into kind of a a separate top. Okay, And so there is the Indy graduated neutral density filters, which is for darkening the sky. There are polarize er's, which will darken the sky if the sun is at the correct angle. And so there are certain cases where the sun just isn't in the right angle for me to use a polarizer, so I'll use an indie filter to darken the sky, and so they are sometimes gonna be used together. Sometimes I'll say, you know what? I can use a polarizer and the indie filter because I need to top in bark, need to darken the top of the sky as well as getting rid of these reflections. And so the polarizer issue. There's a whole separate polarizer in the old days before autofocus. There was linear polarize er's and it mismatched with the autofocus system, and it actually blocked out the focusing and actually the exposure system as well. And so they redesigned the polarizing. We're not gonna explain why, but they called him circular polarizer and so that you could now use a polarizer with your autofocus auto exposure camera. So most all the polarizer is that you're gonna find today are going to be circular polarizer. However, I think it's a conspiracy because I've used linear polarizer on new modern cameras and haven't had a problem. But before you do so yourself, check to see if it works in your camera.