Quote Originally Posted by jjphoto View Post
I often use a PL when shooting portraits to help lower shutter speed when shooting wide open, or relatively so. This helps to allow the use of flash which needs a specific synch speed, often below 1/250th depending on the camera of course. It's no use shooting at 1/1000th of a sec if you want to use flash so you often need to lower the shutter speed somehow. Often an ND filter is too strong so a PL can be just right whilst still making it easy to focus.
Hmmm... seems an overly complicated way to do things. With flash, just dialling in your max shutter sync speed ought to be enough. In fact, my D7000 automagically selects my max shutter sync speed when flash is selected, even in full manual mode. Easy. Why would you not take full, manual control when shooting portraits with flash anyway? Controlling the light is more important in portraiture than almost any other genre, IMHO.

Quote Originally Posted by jjphoto View Post
A PL is often a good way to dramatically change or control the background without dramatically affecting the subject.
Really? So all the effort you go to when trying to balance the light on your subject in portraiture isn't "dramatically affected" (sic) when using a CPL on your lens? Doesn't seem right to me.


Quote Originally Posted by jjphoto View Post
Yes, my mileage does vary, so much so that I 'invested' in a PL specifically for a lens I often use for portraiture...[snip]...But the OP mentions not portraiture, so may not be relevant anyway.
No, the OP doesn't mention portraiture specifically ... I did when I commented on the most common use for a 35mm f/1.8 lens. Doesn't change the facts, does it? Perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree on the use of polarising filters in portraiture.