Try this: Hold the circular polarizer up to your eye and look in a mirror. Two linear polarizers oriented 90 degrees away from each other cancel the light. Two circular polarizers oriented the exact SAME way cancel. Now sensors and reflection surfaces and ordinary polarizers are unable to brighten/darken the light the way a second polarizer can behind a normal linearly polarized filter. What it does is change the phase of the polarized light coming in through the polarized layer and "spins" it. This last layer is the circularizer of "circular polarizer". The filter is three layers, glass, polarizing material and another layer called a retarder. This filter is the most complex of the set and while you are waiting for the perfect replacements to arrive (I'm calling Nikon today!) here is a quick set of FAQ's on circular polarizers: I think we are detecting a a high problem rate with the C-PL (Circular PoLarizer) here. I guess I caught somebody coming back from lunch. I was a little surprised by the packaging, though: it came in a nicely padded envelope - but the lens was wrapped in a cafeteria napkin. I was happy with the replacement: it was shipped promptly, included a letter of apology from one of the Customer Service Reps, and arrived in good condition. Hand-packed, I'm surprised that defective filters are slipping through.Īt any rate, I simply called Nikon customer service, and they shipped me an extra UV filter - no questions asked. I can't believe that these Coolpacks are manufactured in small enough quantities that they're hand-packed. I was also surprised to find fingerprints on three of the four filters. My Coolpack arrived without the UV filter: I had an extra ND8 in its place.
I suspect that, if you call again, you'll get a more reasonable response.
They will, however, replace the entire SET.