Photojojo’s $20 iPhone Polarizer, And Why You Want It

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Question: What’s the only (non-gimmicky) photographic filter that can’t be duplicated in software? That’s right, you smart genius you! It’s the polarizer. A polarizer will do two things for your photography: it’ll increase the saturation of the colors in your pictures, and it’ll cut out unwanted reflections from glass and water. And Photojojo will now sell you one that’ll clip right onto your iPhone.

The $20 polarizer is simple. It will clip to the phone and cover the lens with a spinning circle of polarizing glass. Twist this to get the maximum increase in color saturation or to line it up just right to get rid of that annoying reflection.

Before… After!

How do these things work? Imagine light that has bounced around the scene before you and is now shooting into your lens. That light is polarized. That is, it consists of waves in various orientations, some vertical, some horizontal.

A polarizer, polarizing. Theoretically.

Imagine the polarizer as a tiny version of a prison door, with parallel bars super close together. The filter only lets light in that lines up with the bars and can slip through. Anything else bounces off (or is absorbed). Think of passing a shotgun to the prisoner inside that cell (not a great idea, BTW). If you try to shove it through horizontally it’ll clang against the bars.

The result is that you cut out hazy, annoying light and, if you turn the filter to it lines up just right, you can even cut out soft reflections from water and glass, letting you see the fish inside a pond instead of the sky reflecting off that pond, for instance.

So there you have it. Break prisoners out of jail with your iPhone and $20. Wait, that’s not right…

Source: The Photojojo Store

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