HRT, or “High Rate Transparency,” is what you can expect to see printed on a new series of Hoya circular polarizers, it seems. What this means, mostly, is that they use a new film that polarizes as normal, but remains about 1/3 stop brighter while doing so. For those of you inexperienced with C-Pols, they tend to cost you about 1 stop in light, making them useful as a 1 stop ND and for making your camera looks like it has tinted windows (like a real gangsta), but not so hot if you were shooting lakes at dusk.

So, luckily, these new C-Pols will be 1/3 stop brighter, which will of course matter so some and be irrelevant to others, but it’s still a nice new offering. And, apparently the new film has UV cut-off filters on its own, so they’re UV filters, too, for those of you with no or weak cut-off filters built over your sensor (or, for those of you nuts using this “film” stuff I hear about).

Pricing and availability still unknown.