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Been spending a lot of time on here!
So I was thinking about the SLT thing and how that the concept could be improved. I was wondering what if they (ahem: sony) used liquid crystal to polarize light from the lens, and then pass it through a polarizing beamsplitter such that P-polarized light is transmitted to the imager and S-polarized light is reflected to the evf? The liquid crystal state would be synchronized to the shutter, such that it would direct 100% of the light to be transmitted or reflected to appropriate device as needed. If the shutter is open, the the light would be transmitted to the imager, otherwise it would be reflected to the viewfinder.
Unlike the polarizing filters we are familiar, a thin layer of liquid crystal should be fairly transmissive and could be integrated into the beamsplitter itself, so overall loss should be minimal.
Obviously, you'll have a permanent polarizer built in, which is a drawback that could be marketed as "better contrast" while circular polarizers could be used as a variable ND.
Unlike the polarizing filters we are familiar, a thin layer of liquid crystal should be fairly transmissive and could be integrated into the beamsplitter itself, so overall loss should be minimal.
Obviously, you'll have a permanent polarizer built in, which is a drawback that could be marketed as "better contrast" while circular polarizers could be used as a variable ND.
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