Just moving in to the 4X5 world and I'm as bit confused on the use of filters su ch as polarizers, ND's, ect. - in the 35mm world your screw these babies on the front for circular polarizers, add an attachment to the front on ND's - welll, y ou understand. In the 4X5 world do all filters go BEHIND the lens like a gel? o r..how???? Can anyone direct me to a tutorial or site? Thanks.
They work the same as MF or 35mm. They screw on the front of the lens. Graduated filters(4x4 or 4x6) go into a holder that screws onto the lens, just like any other camera.
All of my LF (4x5) lenses take 67mm filters. Same filters that I use on my Hasselblad and Leica cameras.
Anthony, you can indeed screw on filters to LF lenses just like 35mm or MF lenses. You can also use a filter system such as Lee, or Cokin. Many LF camera manufacturers offer compendium hoods, which can accept filters. Although I'm not sure, I think some LF lenses have threaded rear elements which can accept filters as well.
Any way you can get 'em in the light stream. If you put them at the back, remember that you're bending the light 1 more time and your focus will be affected by the same distance as the width of the filter. Are you starting out with an older lens that doesn't have a filter thread at the front? A lot of the earlier lenses like used on '50's era press cameras didn't have filter threads and you'll have to invent a way to mount them. Steve Grimes at skgrimes.com actually makes push on adapters to solve that exact problem.
<I>"your focus will be affected by the same distance as the width of the filter" He means thickness not width.
And if you are using multiple filters with any lens and any camera the polarizing filter should be the one furthest from the lens.
I knew I'd screw it up...........Thanks E
And actually, it's a focus shift equal to 1/3 the thickness of the filter. For gels, the resulting shift is negligible. For glass filters on the rear element - focus with the filter installed for best results.
Kerry
</I></I></I> sorry for the bad html.
Mounting filters between the lens and ground glass also reduces reflections (when mounted on the front) that can cause flare.
In addition to a negligible focus shift, there is also an amount of spherical aberration that's introduced, because oblique rays pass through more filter than center rays. So, the plane of focus can depend on the angle of the ray. This should also be negligible, except perhaps for very wide angle lenses. (75mm or less? Not sure.)
In spite of all this, I use an inexpensive Xenophon 4" filter holder (from Calumet) on the back of my reduction lens board adaptor, and this holds all my 4" gel filters for 65mm up through 360mm lenses.
I would like to add that I have a Nikkor 210 with a screw in filter size of 70 mm and a caltlar 135 with a screw in filter size of 40. I cant find the right screw in filters anywhere. I even checked B&H, all I found there was a Linhof 70mm filter (UV) and it was well over $150.00! Wow! Anyway any thoughts as to how I might be able to find these filters, Uv and circular polarizer?
Thanks ClarK
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