filters?

[false_Aesthetic]

Hey,

Last time I bought a filter was for my pentax k1000 in highschool. I smartly chose the most expensive one I could afford--the cheapest one on B+H

It's time to buy a filter or 2 again. I've looked at B+H and Calumet's site and found some for $150 and some for $20. (e.g. Tiffen red 25 is $136.99 while a Calumet Red 25 MC is $28.99---yes, they're the same size)

What's the difference? Obviously I'm paying for some quality . . . but is it something that most people will notice?

Thanks

T


p.s. specifically I'm looking for a 67mm yellow 15 and a yellow 8.

[Ralph Barker]

. . . but is it something that most people will notice?

The answer probably falls somewhere between "maybe" and "definitely". The basic differences lie in quality of the glass and color, and the quality of the mounting ring. The better filters will have better glass, more stable color, and may be coated. They will also have brass mounting rings, rather than aluminum. The quality difference in the glass may not be noticeable to most folks. Once the cheap aluminum mounting ring gets stuck on your lens, however, attentive folks will definitely notice that all of your images are made with that filter.

[Bob Salomon]

There are many differences in how filters are made.

In the case of Tiffen they take two pieces of plate glass and laminate them together with colored glue. The color of the glue is the color of the filter. The filters are not coated.

Some take two pieces of glass and laminate a gel between them.

Others like Heliopan make solid glass filters where the color is controlled by the minerals in the glass and the amount of color is controlled by the thickness of the glass. These filters have either 6 coats per side or 12 coats per side. The top coat on each side repels dust and moisture and the coatings are very hard and applied like lens coatings so they are easy to clean.

Hoya molds glass in a similar process but their coatings are not as hard and the filters may smudge as they are cleaned when they are multi coated.

Some companies only coat one side of a filter.

Heliopan uses brass rings that are slim and won't bind or cross thread. Tiffen uses aluminum or plastic rims which can bind more easily and can cross thread.
Heliopan uses a retaining ring that can be tightened with the proper tools to hold the glass in place. Some manufacturers use a snap-in retaining ring that can't easily be re-tightened.

Solid glass filters are ground and polished just like a lens element is. In the case of filters this results in two very parallel, flat surfaces that have no or minimal effect on lens sharpness.

Filters that are laminated have 6 surfaces that are not all ground flat and parallel so they can affect a len's performance.

In short, you get what you pay for.

[roteague]

I never considered Tiffen a real high quality filter maker. I have a couple, but most of my filters are now B+W.

[Brian Ellis]

It seems like I've owned every brand of filter there is for black and white photography, from B+W to Heliopan to Tiffen to Hoya to Lee and probably others I don't now recall. There is no way I could possibly look at my photographs and know which was made with which filter (or for that matter, even know which was made with a filter and which wasn't unless I was striving for a special effect or happened to remember). All of the major brands of filters seem to work fine. I used to buy B+W exclusively on the theory that since they cost so much they must be better and I still have several of them. They may be better made or use more expensive materials but from an optical standpoint I see no difference between them and any other filter in the final results. As for Tiffen, I don't go out of my way to buy them but I have no hesitation in buying them if they're readily available in the size I need. John Sexton uses (or used, when I last attended one of his workshops about four years ago) Tiffen filters so I'm pretty comfortable using them myself. My only slight disappointment has been with a Hoya filter, on one of them the glass is a little loose in the ring. It has no effect on the use of the filter, it just gives a feeling of "cheapness." The other Hoyas have been fine.

Joe Englander wrote an article about different color casts with different brands of polarizers many years ago. When the photographs were presented side by side you could see a slight difference between them but none was offensive, they were just a little different (obviously that was with color photographs, not b&w).

I've never had any particular problem with any filter except the occasional "binding," which I've had at one time or another with every brand of filter I've ever used. John Sexton's cure for that is an annual very light coating with Vaseline. I've never considered the problem sufficiently serious to bother, I've never had a filter bind to a point that with a little push-pull by hand it couldn't be removed.

I agree with the general principle that you get what you pay for but you have to be careful about exactly what it is you're paying for. In filters the only thing I'm interested in paying for is optical quality. I'm not interested in paying for an expensive metal ring or German labor or a middle-man's mark-up. As far as I've been able to tell, the optical quality as among the major brands is the same.

[Bob Salomon]

BRIAN,

Shoot a scene with the sun glancing off the filter with an uncoated, coated and fully multi-coated filter and you will see a difference. Proper coatings and multi-coatings pass more light to the image plane and have less veiling due to flare. The more effective multi-coatings will have the least veiling.

If shooting B&W the proper coatings will also be apparent in less flare, better contrast, etc.
In color there differences will also be easily apparent.

However if you are looking for an early photographic appearence to your image then the uncoated filters will be best.

As for using uncoated filters and eliminating the problems with uncontrolled flare - that is what a good compendium can do.

[Michael Gudzinowicz]

As Bob mentioned, each element of the "sandwich" filters are not planar and imperfections introduce a variable but real difference in focal length over the filters surface. A good filter should be ground like a lens with no focal length. When "sandwich" or cheap filters are used with long lenses, their contribution becomes significant (check the thin lens formulas). I've purchased 35mm long focal length lenses for a song since one could hardly focus them with the "protective" Tiffen filter in place. Without the filter, they were perfect. Those filters also degrade view camera lenses, especially when the focal length is 200mm and longer. Some examples may be OK, but I'm not going to each one.

Mike

[vinny]

I've got tiffen,hoya,b+w, and heliopan. The tiffen's rings are much thicker than the others which isn't good on wide-angle lenses when you want/need more than one filter. Tiffen rings wear over time and bind up more than the others. The hoya pola that i have came with a 3/16" defect in the glass that i didn't notice until it was too late to return it. The B+W's are the best value for what you get in my opinion. If i had to do it again, i'd get larger filters so i wouldn't need to get bigger sizes when i got bigger lenses. My new standard is 82mm and i started with 72mm. Get big ones and use step up rings on your lenses with new lens caps.

vinny

[Nick_3536]

It's time to buy a filter or 2 again. I've looked at B+H and Calumet's site and found some for $150 and some for $20. (e.g. Tiffen red 25 is $136.99 while a Calumet Red 25 MC is $28.99---yes, they're the same size)

If a Tiffen #25 in a reasonable size is selling for that price I'd question the price. Somebody inputted the wrong number into the computer.

I've got Tiffen,B&W,Hoya,Heliopan and Contax [I think]

The Heliopan seem the best made.

The Hoya and the B&W are more then good enough for me. So are the Contax I picked up on a close out.

Tiffen makes a few colours nobody else seems to anymore. Rarely used but when you want them they exist.

[Jim Jones]

I prefer solid glass filters over the laminated type where possible. Laminating polarizing filters is necessary. I've had one Leitz and two Nikkor polarizers fail over several decades. The Leitz delaminated and the Nikkors became distorted enough to affect performance. The use of a snap-in retaining ring in a filter may be inelegant, but it works well. Screw-in retainers may tempt photographers to tighten the retainer and distort a laminated filter.