Polarizer filters

The effect change of a polarizer will not be that visible. Its not a line like a ND grad. The CP affects the whole scene not just half of it like that. What you will notice IF you look is a gradual change in the darkness of the sky and clouds as the angle changes. But if you have the CP rotated so its change isn't full on then the variation is not that noticeable. And if you had an absolutely cloudless sky anyway, if you look around the sky is not uniformly blue anyway so the change will appear mostly natural. You will notice a slight change in clouds, but again, moderation is key to using a CP on skies.
So I see demonstrations where someone is holding the filter in their hands and turns until the view turns completely black. If flying around at varying angles what is the chance of having some black segments on the recorded video? Does this happen a lot?
 
That is not going to happen.

Well, almost never. The only time that turning a CP will make the scene go black is if the scene was lit by polarized light. An example, your LCD TV or Computer monitors have a polarizing filter so while you are reading this, you are looking at polarized light! If you are looking through a filter in your hand and rotate it as you look at a computer screen, the screen will go black. Natural outdoor (or indoor) scenes you are going to be flying your Phantom in will virtually never ever be lit by polarized light.

Another way to do that is polarize your light source. Yes, its done on rare occasions. Sometimes you want reflections off a surface (say a car or windshield), but do not want a flash (strobe) light hot point to be seen (makes it harder to photoshop out). You can place a sheet of CP gel over the strobe and rotate it so its virtually eliminated from the reflection but still lights the scene. Its almost completely canceled out by putting it in a softbox which does exactly the same thing as the atmosphere does to the sun, it randomizes and scatters the light. Therefore sunlight will not be blocked totally by a CP.

The only other way to do that is put TWO CPs on your Phantom. Rotate one and the scene (any scene) will eventually go black when the two filters are exactly 90 deg from each other. No idea why you would do that but, yes, you can.
 
Thanks for a detailed reply, @Wolfiesden!
 
Another silly question...generally speaking, I'm assuming I should take off the polarized filter when it is dark out (e.g. dusk and after), correct?
 
You shouldn't need to use a filter in low light conditions.
 
If you're getting shots of marine life on an overcast day, what's the "right" filter combination?
 

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