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Filter question

bijansabet

New member
Hi everyone.

I keep clear B+W filters on all my Leica glass for protection. I add a 3 stop B+W ND filter that I stack on top of the clear filter if I want to shoot wide open during bright sunlight. and then i remove it when i head indoors or when the sun goes down.

I was in a local camera shop recently and the nice sales person was telling me that there are better filters that I should try that provide better sharpness, uv reduction and contrast improvement.

Any suggestions would be most helpful. I have 3 Leica lenses at the moment:
35mm lux, 50mm lux and a noctilux in case that helps.

Thanks in advance!
 

Hosermage

Active member
Do you have the latest 35'Lux? How do you stack ND filter on that? I couldn't, so I had to remove the hood and regular uv filter in order to put in the ND filter and screw the hood back on.
 

bijansabet

New member
hi there.

i do have the latest 35lux.

i remove the hood, stack the filters and then put them hood back on (sometimes) or just leave the hood off.

which filter do you use when you don't have a nd filter on?
 

Hosermage

Active member
Ah... I didn't know I can put the hood on with stacked filters. Next time I'll know :)

On the 35'Lux, I have the leica uva filter that came with when I bought it, I have the "B+W 010 UV-haze MRC" on the 50'Lux and 28'Cron. I like the fact that they're all 46mm so they can share the same ND filter.
 

MirekE

New member
Sharpness - reliable information on filter resolution is hard to find and I doubt the nice sales person has it. I never heard about B+W filters having impact on resolution (apart from polarizers) and I am skeptical about veracity of this statement.

UV reduction - there are filters that provide stronger UV reduction than the ordinary UV filters from B+W, but the need for better UV reduction on digital cameras is questionable. I would be more worried about IR transmission of the ND filter. IR contamination can cause wrong colors with digital cameras. Take a look at Tiffen IRND filters, for example. If you still think you need strong UV protection, look at B+W UV 415 filter. Yes, it is also B+W, but the UV reduction is more serious that the standard filters.

Contrast improvement - that depends on quality of the anti-reflection coating. If you have current production B+W filters with the MRC Nano layers, you will be probably hard pressed to find anything notably better. If you have older filters with less sophisticated coating, you can always remove the filter and compare.

That said, I don't think stacking protection filter and ND filter is a good idea. The more filters you use, the higher the chance that they will impact image quality.
 

250swb

Member
I think the man in the camera shop was just trying to sell you something.

But I wouldn't stack filters. I use a filter on all my lenses because I don't bother with lens caps. But often you'll hear the cry that putting a filter on your Leica lens will cause reflections and flare, which it can as a general theory, and given the right light source (sun or bright lamp) it is possible to go out and prove it in a 'test' photograph. But in thirty years I have never actually had it happen under normal conditions, even photographing into the sun. However, stacking filters puts two plains of glass parallel to each other and I think this can cause reflections in less demanding conditions than bright sun. It also adds to the risk of vignetting when the lens is wide open.

Leica lenses are contrasty enough already, and post processing is the place to increase contrast in a fully controlled way, so I would steer clear of claims for increased contrast by using stronger filters. Use a clear protection filter (clear coated glass) or a standard UV, nothing more.

Steve
 

JohnBrew

Active member
David, I built my lens kit around the same idea of using one size filter. Back in the film days I used the same UV filter as you and stacked it with a yellow filter (when needed). This was done because of an article by Pete Meyers on Lula. I was using the same film setup as he and I liked the tonality of his images so I copied what he was using at the time. It worked great!
Today I use an yellow-orange filter (B+W 040 4x MRC) for bw or an ND when I want to shoot wide open outdoors and for long exposures. I've had some interesting reactions when using an ND filter by those who haven't a clue.
 
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Bob

Administrator
Staff member
I won't use clear filters unless I am in a area known to be subject to sea-spray or blowing sand.
As for B&W contrast filters with film, I often use an orange filter shooting nudes and a yellow when shooting landscape.
Orange just seems for me to be a tad tpp much sky enhancement.
UV filters are just not needed with digital, and not even with many films depending on the spectral sensitivity. I might change my mind a bit if I did much telephoto film work and had more haze to deal with, but I don't.
In any case, I try to minimize the number of air-glass surfaces, so I would limit it to just one filter with the exception perhaps of an ND.
-bob
 

bijansabet

New member
I won't use clear filters unless I am in a area known to be subject to sea-spray or blowing sand.
As for B&W contrast filters with film, I often use an orange filter shooting nudes and a yellow when shooting landscape.
Orange just seems for me to be a tad tpp much sky enhancement.
UV filters are just not needed with digital, and not even with many films depending on the spectral sensitivity. I might change my mind a bit if I did much telephoto film work and had more haze to deal with, but I don't.
In any case, I try to minimize the number of air-glass surfaces, so I would limit it to just one filter with the exception perhaps of an ND.
-bob
I like your thinking about not using filters but i'm too nervous about my glass!
 

bijansabet

New member
I think the man in the camera shop was just trying to sell you something.

But I wouldn't stack filters. I use a filter on all my lenses because I don't bother with lens caps. But often you'll hear the cry that putting a filter on your Leica lens will cause reflections and flare, which it can as a general theory, and given the right light source (sun or bright lamp) it is possible to go out and prove it in a 'test' photograph. But in thirty years I have never actually had it happen under normal conditions, even photographing into the sun. However, stacking filters puts two plains of glass parallel to each other and I think this can cause reflections in less demanding conditions than bright sun. It also adds to the risk of vignetting when the lens is wide open.

Leica lenses are contrasty enough already, and post processing is the place to increase contrast in a fully controlled way, so I would steer clear of claims for increased contrast by using stronger filters. Use a clear protection filter (clear coated glass) or a standard UV, nothing more.

Steve
thanks! good advice. i think i was stacking them out of partial laziness. appreciate the info!
 

jaapv

Subscriber Member
Filters add two glass-air surfaces. That quadruples flare and reflection. Not too bad if there is not much about anyway. However, stacking another filter will increase reflections and flare sixteenfold.
There will be a visible degradation in the corners too, which may be irrelevant depending on the subject and enlargement.
I fail to see, however, why you would stack filters in the first place.
Basically I am very sceptical of the use of protective filters anyway. You just paid thousands for the best lenses money can buy and then you put an extra layer of glass on...:confused:. Added to which is that the only time I damaged the front of a lens over the decades it was by a filter. I had a skylight filter on the 280 APO 4.0 (stupid, I know, it has a rear filter mount....), dropped it and a shard of the filter glass cut a deep gouge in the front element. That was not cheap...:eek:
 

JohnBrew

Active member
I never, EVER had flare and reflections when stacking filters with film. But then I didn't shoot into the sun either.
 

250swb

Member
Basically I am very sceptical of the use of protective filters anyway. You just paid thousands for the best lenses money can buy and then you put an extra layer of glass on...:confused:.
Coated glass in this day and age.

The default position throughout the best part of the history of photography has been that a filter is a key feature on the front of the lens. If we simply take Leica and film photography we are talking nearly one hundred years of filter use, where not only has a filter thread been present on the front of the lens, but other than by rank amateurs filters have been used to manipulate the image and aid expression and add control.

It is now an appalling situation where the greater the expense of the lens the greater the moral pressure to abdicate control of the image. You either buy a lens to make the photographs you want to make, with or without filters, or you buy a lens to demonstrate the lens as no more than a factotum salesman for your favoured company. Why should anybody spend so much on a lens if all their photography revolves around showing how perfect and sharp it is if they have nothing else to say? What a waste of time and money.

And while I'm having a rant, given the material the world is made from, why is it that sand is only assumed to come from the seaside? Yes, that is a filter related question.

Steve
 

Amin

Active member
thanks! good advice. i think i was stacking them out of partial laziness. appreciate the info!
Nothing wrong with laziness. Clear protection filters - outside of shooting in bad conditions - are all about laziness. With a protection filter you can clean the kids' fingerprints off the front after blowing off the debris with your mouth and then wiping it with the shirt you've been wearing all day. Without the filter, you have to carefully use a brush for any debris and then use a proper lens pen or wipe to get off the fingerprint. I'd rather blow off and use my shirt.

As for which protection filter is best, your camera has a good UV filter on the sensor, so there should be no significant difference between a good clear filter or a good UV filter.

Re: stacking, it would be better for results to take the clear filter off and put on the ND filter, but again, it comes down to efforts vs results. If you get the results you want by stacking and it's lower effort to do that, seems like the way to go. Probably won't see any impact on the images vast majority of the time when using great quality filters. If you do get weird flare or reflections doing that, then it comes down to whether you like weird flare or relections :).
 

jaapv

Subscriber Member
Coated glass in this day and age.

The default position throughout the best part of the history of photography has been that a filter is a key feature on the front of the lens. If we simply take Leica and film photography we are talking nearly one hundred years of filter use, where not only has a filter thread been present on the front of the lens, but other than by rank amateurs filters have been used to manipulate the image and aid expression and add control.

It is now an appalling situation where the greater the expense of the lens the greater the moral pressure to abdicate control of the image. You either buy a lens to make the photographs you want to make, with or without filters, or you buy a lens to demonstrate the lens as no more than a factotum salesman for your favoured company. Why should anybody spend so much on a lens if all their photography revolves around showing how perfect and sharp it is if they have nothing else to say? What a waste of time and money.

And while I'm having a rant, given the material the world is made from, why is it that sand is only assumed to come from the seaside? Yes, that is a filter related question.

Steve
Come on, Steve, you know I have cases full of filters to use when they make sense... But the key phrase is "when it makes sense". To screw a filter on your lens when new and never to remove it does not. Use a filter when there is a reason. Otherwise not.
 

jaapv

Subscriber Member
I'd rather blow off and use my shirt.

As for which protection filter is best, your camera has a good UV filter on the sensor, so there should be no significant difference between a good clear filter or a good UV filter.
1 That is exactly what I do with my naked lens.:bugeyes: Never a scratch. Those coatings are tough...:angel:
2. The sensor has no UV filter, your camera is suitable for UV photography. The lenses, however, are mostly UV filtered.
 

MirekE

New member
I like your thinking about not using filters but i'm too nervous about my glass!

1. If I use filters, they usually get dirty pretty quickly and I usually notice it when it is too late. On the other hand, my unprotected lenses do not get dirty like that, possibly because the glass is more recessed or because I am instinctively more careful about naked lens vs. filter.

2. The objects that could possibly hit front of a lens are usually not hard enough to damage the front element, but are often stiff enough to break a filter. Shards could then scratch the front element. I don't know how likely is this scenario, but it is possible.

3. In some of my lenses, for example the 90AA, the manufacturer made a great effort to minimize the number of lens elements. They used expensive, hard to process types of glass. I paid extra money to get a lens with minimized number of elements and then I pay extra on top of it to add another glass to reduce the benefits I paid for in the first place...

4. Let's assume an average photographer damages one front element during their life. If I compare the cost of the high quality protective filters one collects in a lifetime, vs. cost of front element replacement, I am not sure how big saving it is.

These are just my reasons based on my experience and my usage. If you enjoy your photography more with he extra protection, there is nothing wrong with it.
 
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