When I bought my N8008/F801 in 1989, I'd already owned a linear
polarizer and decided to try using it. In short, it did work with that
camera with and the F4 I picked up later.
My assumption is that a polarizer is not perfect and reduces but does
not completely eliminate unpolarized light light. You can check this by
looking through 2 polarizers with the axes (as denoted by the mark on
the polarizer rim) at right angles to each other. If both polarizers
were perfect, absolutely no light should get through. But the only time
I ever tried looking through crossed polarizers, I was able to see dimly
through them.
Photographically, when I use a polarizer, it's usually in bright light
(to darken a sky or reduce bright reflections) so the there's probably
enough unpolarized light getting through to allow focus and exposure
systems to work.
This is guesswork only and I no longer own those cameras or the linear
polarizer to work up an experiment to try to analyze this further. My
advice is to bring your linear polarizer ti the camera store and try it
out an any camera you're considering buying.
Regard
Dennis
