A couple years ago, I came across an explaination of
cross-polarization in George Lepp's "Beyond the Basics; Innovative
Techniques for Outdoor/Nature Photography" (pp. 40-48), and I built a
device to hold polarizing material in front of two T32's. I use this
set up to photograph jumping spiders (4-8 mm long) with a 38mm macro OM
lens and telescopic autotube on an OM4T. A polarizing filter on the
lens, set at 90 degrees to the gratings of the polarizing material on
the flashes, completes the set up.
The results are very nice: colors are more natural, and I can
eliminate strong reflections that look like white stripes on the
spider. I am very happy with the results. Cross polarization is a
very, very useful technique for some subjects. The downside is the
amount of light lost (Lepp says up to 5 stops).
While the OM ring flashes can take an OM cross-polarization filter,
you are not confined to using the special OM ring flashes if you want to
use cross-polarization--with a little time in the shop, you can make a
cross-polarization set up for use with any of the other (e.g., T20 &
T32) OM flashes.
Dean
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