Filters

[dibbly dobbler]

Evening All

I'm bidding on a CP filter as per this - I've gone for the PRO1 as it 'seems' to be the best.

I also started looking for an ND filter - Hoya again - they have a standard range as per this for £30 or again a PRO1 filter as per this for £52.

I've read that the different Hoya UV filters are much of a muchness - does anybody have a view on whether the CP and ND PRO1 filters are worth the extra over the standard ?

(sorry, this an intensely dull thread )

[LongQ]

dibbly dobbler said:

Evening All

I'm bidding on a CP filter as per this - I've gone for the PRO1 as it 'seems' to be the best.

I also started looking for an ND filter - Hoya again - they have a standard range as per this for £30 or again a PRO1 filter as per this for £52.

I've read that the different Hoya UV filters are much of a muchness - does anybody have a view on whether the CP and ND PRO1 filters are worth the extra over the standard ?

(sorry, this an intensely dull thread )

Hmm.

You stalking me on the net dd? I spent an hour or so browsing filters late this PM. ......

I think with filter from a recognised brand you do tend to get improvements with each grade (where they offer different grades). Of course shopping wisely can, if lucky, obtain the better grade for no additional cost over the lesser grades.

Some types of filter are so ubiquitous that real world differentiation between them may be small nearly all the time. However, since CP are rarely cheap it may be wiser to buy the suposedly higher quality version if one can. The same with ND in that the cheapset options may well cut the transmission of light but the additional cuts they provide could deliver frustration along with the images.

Earlier I discover some interesting graphs about B&W ND filters.

http://www.bpluswfilters.co.uk/index.php?page=prod...

Click the technical tab and then consider the likely effects (based on the graphs) if the filter filters are stacked.

[dibbly dobbler]

LongQ said:

dibbly dobbler said:

Evening All

I'm bidding on a CP filter as per this - I've gone for the PRO1 as it 'seems' to be the best.

I also started looking for an ND filter - Hoya again - they have a standard range as per this for £30 or again a PRO1 filter as per this for £52.

I've read that the different Hoya UV filters are much of a muchness - does anybody have a view on whether the CP and ND PRO1 filters are worth the extra over the standard ?

(sorry, this an intensely dull thread )

Hmm.

You stalking me on the net dd? I spent an hour or so browsing filters late this PM. ......

I think with filter from a recognised brand you do tend to get improvements with each grade (where they offer different grades). Of course shopping wisely can, if lucky, obtain the better grade for no additional cost over the lesser grades.

Some types of filter are so ubiquitous that real world differentiation between them may be small nearly all the time. However, since CP are rarely cheap it may be wiser to buy the suposedly higher quality version if one can. The same with ND in that the cheapset options may well cut the transmission of light but the additional cuts they provide could deliver frustration along with the images.

Earlier I discover some interesting graphs about B&W ND filters.

http://www.bpluswfilters.co.uk/index.php?page=prod...

Click the technical tab and then consider the likely effects (based on the graphs) if the filter filters are stacked.

Thanks LQ - no stalking going on honest

Reckon I will go for the more expensive PRO 1 ND - the cost difference is not that great and I wouldn't want to 'Spoil the ship for a ha'pworth of tar' as the saying goes . I have already bid on a PRO 1 CP so fingers crossed that's in the bag.

I tried your link but to be honest the meaning you were implying is lost on me (In my defence it was a fking long day in the office, followed by (my son's) maths and chemistry homework and two glasses on Rioja so I'm virtually brian dead ). Can you be bothered to spell it out for me please ?

[LongQ]

dibbly dobbler said:

LongQ said:

dibbly dobbler said:

Evening All

I'm bidding on a CP filter as per this - I've gone for the PRO1 as it 'seems' to be the best.

I also started looking for an ND filter - Hoya again - they have a standard range as per this for £30 or again a PRO1 filter as per this for £52.

I've read that the different Hoya UV filters are much of a muchness - does anybody have a view on whether the CP and ND PRO1 filters are worth the extra over the standard ?

(sorry, this an intensely dull thread )

Hmm.

You stalking me on the net dd? I spent an hour or so browsing filters late this PM. ......

I think with filter from a recognised brand you do tend to get improvements with each grade (where they offer different grades). Of course shopping wisely can, if lucky, obtain the better grade for no additional cost over the lesser grades.

Some types of filter are so ubiquitous that real world differentiation between them may be small nearly all the time. However, since CP are rarely cheap it may be wiser to buy the suposedly higher quality version if one can. The same with ND in that the cheapset options may well cut the transmission of light but the additional cuts they provide could deliver frustration along with the images.

Earlier I discover some interesting graphs about B&W ND filters.

http://www.bpluswfilters.co.uk/index.php?page=prod...

Click the technical tab and then consider the likely effects (based on the graphs) if the filter filters are stacked.

Thanks LQ - no stalking going on honest

Reckon I will go for the more expensive PRO 1 ND - the cost difference is not that great and I wouldn't want to 'Spoil the ship for a ha'pworth of tar' as the saying goes . I have already bid on a PRO 1 CP so fingers crossed that's in the bag.

I tried your link but to be honest the meaning you were implying is lost on me (In my defence it was a fking long day in the office, followed by (my son's) maths and chemistry homework and two glasses on Rioja so I'm virtually brian dead ). Can you be bothered to spell it out for me please ?

Erm, well, I said the graphs were interesting. Fortunately I stopped short of saying I understood them ......

However ....

Given that they are B+W's measurements and one might assume that their optical quality (for purpose) is near the top of the tree. it seems safe to assume that these filter measured are about as good as anyone will get, individually.

The graphs appear to be showing transmission rates (or rather lack of transmission rates) for their glass across the light spectrum. Or at least that part of the spectrum that is meaningful in terms of our ability to use it. I think I am right in saying the a non-linear response will tend to be the reason for a colour cast as recorded on film or by a digital sensor. The effect of the cast may not be the same on all films (in fact it probably won't be the same) nor all sensors equally.

Now consider the effect of stacking the filters.

If the responses are quite consistent and level the adjustments in each wavelength will probably also be quite consistent thus accumulating to an even (enough) adjustment across the the entire spectrum. But if they are not linear the resulting aggregation seems likely to produce certain peaks that, when combined, translate into a colour cast.

To a human visible light is between 380nm and about 760nm so looking at the scale on the graph (under the technical tab in the linked page) at the bottom we can see that it aligns with the start of recognisable blue and stops one vertical axis bar from the right hand side where things are heading towards a very deep red. (Actually we should not be able to see that onthe graph but for represenational purposes we can let that go.

Ideally the light transmission figure for each type of filter should be a horizontal line between those two values. For the most part with most filters it is and so should give consistent neutral results (though I am not sure how the logarithmic scale should be interpreted in that respect). However at the extreme left (deepest blue) and the extreme right, especially for the 106 and 110 filters, there is some variance.

I would imagine that these differences are not important for all practical purposes even when aggregated by stacking. However I could see how filters made from more variable product that might have distinct shifts at certain point on the graph, could well end up with a very imbalanced colour transmission (in terms of how the sensor gathers its data) and so show the colour casts that are often mentioned.

I'm sure at least one person will have written a book about it somewhere on the net. In fact there may be a few blogs - who knows? Hopefully all we really need to know is which filters perform better than others and then buy on that basis and actually get around to using them. The latter being the most important consideration outwith which the rest is rather irrelevant I suppose.

A quick attempt at a search threw up this

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201...

which is sort of interesting.

The graph for the 110 does suggest a higher transmission of red - perhaps enough to be noticable.

People do reckon that Canon's are more sensitive to red than Nikons so maybe that is another factor to consider - but then we would also need to know whether monitors are calibrated, printers have been set up with calibration targets and so on .... hmm ..... time for bed I think.

[dibbly dobbler]

LongQ said:

dibbly dobbler said:

LongQ said:

dibbly dobbler said:

Evening All

I'm bidding on a CP filter as per this - I've gone for the PRO1 as it 'seems' to be the best.

I also started looking for an ND filter - Hoya again - they have a standard range as per this for £30 or again a PRO1 filter as per this for £52.

I've read that the different Hoya UV filters are much of a muchness - does anybody have a view on whether the CP and ND PRO1 filters are worth the extra over the standard ?

(sorry, this an intensely dull thread )

Hmm.

You stalking me on the net dd? I spent an hour or so browsing filters late this PM. ......

I think with filter from a recognised brand you do tend to get improvements with each grade (where they offer different grades). Of course shopping wisely can, if lucky, obtain the better grade for no additional cost over the lesser grades.

Some types of filter are so ubiquitous that real world differentiation between them may be small nearly all the time. However, since CP are rarely cheap it may be wiser to buy the suposedly higher quality version if one can. The same with ND in that the cheapset options may well cut the transmission of light but the additional cuts they provide could deliver frustration along with the images.

Earlier I discover some interesting graphs about B&W ND filters.

http://www.bpluswfilters.co.uk/index.php?page=prod...

Click the technical tab and then consider the likely effects (based on the graphs) if the filter filters are stacked.

Thanks LQ - no stalking going on honest

Reckon I will go for the more expensive PRO 1 ND - the cost difference is not that great and I wouldn't want to 'Spoil the ship for a ha'pworth of tar' as the saying goes . I have already bid on a PRO 1 CP so fingers crossed that's in the bag.

I tried your link but to be honest the meaning you were implying is lost on me (In my defence it was a fking long day in the office, followed by (my son's) maths and chemistry homework and two glasses on Rioja so I'm virtually brian dead ). Can you be bothered to spell it out for me please ?

Erm, well, I said the graphs were interesting. Fortunately I stopped short of saying I understood them ......

However ....

Given that they are B+W's measurements and one might assume that their optical quality (for purpose) is near the top of the tree. it seems safe to assume that these filter measured are about as good as anyone will get, individually.

The graphs appear to be showing transmission rates (or rather lack of transmission rates) for their glass across the light spectrum. Or at least that part of the spectrum that is meaningful in terms of our ability to use it. I think I am right in saying the a non-linear response will tend to be the reason for a colour cast as recorded on film or by a digital sensor. The effect of the cast may not be the same on all films (in fact it probably won't be the same) nor all sensors equally.

Now consider the effect of stacking the filters.

If the responses are quite consistent and level the adjustments in each wavelength will probably also be quite consistent thus accumulating to an even (enough) adjustment across the the entire spectrum. But if they are not linear the resulting aggregation seems likely to produce certain peaks that, when combined, translate into a colour cast.

To a human visible light is between 380nm and about 760nm so looking at the scale on the graph (under the technical tab in the linked page) at the bottom we can see that it aligns with the start of recognisable blue and stops one vertical axis bar from the right hand side where things are heading towards a very deep red. (Actually we should not be able to see that onthe graph but for represenational purposes we can let that go.

Ideally the light transmission figure for each type of filter should be a horizontal line between those two values. For the most part with most filters it is and so should give consistent neutral results (though I am not sure how the logarithmic scale should be interpreted in that respect). However at the extreme left (deepest blue) and the extreme right, especially for the 106 and 110 filters, there is some variance.

I would imagine that these differences are not important for all practical purposes even when aggregated by stacking. However I could see how filters made from more variable product that might have distinct shifts at certain point on the graph, could well end up with a very imbalanced colour transmission (in terms of how the sensor gathers its data) and so show the colour casts that are often mentioned.

I'm sure at least one person will have written a book about it somewhere on the net. In fact there may be a few blogs - who knows? Hopefully all we really need to know is which filters perform better than others and then buy on that basis and actually get around to using them. The latter being the most important consideration outwith which the rest is rather irrelevant I suppose.

A quick attempt at a search threw up this

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201...

which is sort of interesting.

The graph for the 110 does suggest a higher transmission of red - perhaps enough to be noticable.

People do reckon that Canon's are more sensitive to red than Nikons so maybe that is another factor to consider - but then we would also need to know whether monitors are calibrated, printers have been set up with calibration targets and so on .... hmm ..... time for bed I think.

Excellent stuff LQ (particularly at 3am ) thanks a lot for taking the time

The red colour cast is certainly *very* obvious when stacking Cokin filters - obviously my hope would be that this would not happen with a single screw on Hoya (and in fact I don't even know if you can stack them at all ?). If I buy an ND8 I would hope that would be enough for most purposes anyway.

Back at work now so I best get on with it, but will have a proper look at this at the weekend - thanks again

[LongQ]

dibbly dobbler said:

LongQ said:

dibbly dobbler said:

LongQ said:

dibbly dobbler said:

Evening All

I'm bidding on a CP filter as per this - I've gone for the PRO1 as it 'seems' to be the best.

I also started looking for an ND filter - Hoya again - they have a standard range as per this for £30 or again a PRO1 filter as per this for £52.

I've read that the different Hoya UV filters are much of a muchness - does anybody have a view on whether the CP and ND PRO1 filters are worth the extra over the standard ?

(sorry, this an intensely dull thread )

Hmm.

You stalking me on the net dd? I spent an hour or so browsing filters late this PM. ......

I think with filter from a recognised brand you do tend to get improvements with each grade (where they offer different grades). Of course shopping wisely can, if lucky, obtain the better grade for no additional cost over the lesser grades.

Some types of filter are so ubiquitous that real world differentiation between them may be small nearly all the time. However, since CP are rarely cheap it may be wiser to buy the suposedly higher quality version if one can. The same with ND in that the cheapset options may well cut the transmission of light but the additional cuts they provide could deliver frustration along with the images.

Earlier I discover some interesting graphs about B&W ND filters.

http://www.bpluswfilters.co.uk/index.php?page=prod...

Click the technical tab and then consider the likely effects (based on the graphs) if the filter filters are stacked.

Thanks LQ - no stalking going on honest

Reckon I will go for the more expensive PRO 1 ND - the cost difference is not that great and I wouldn't want to 'Spoil the ship for a ha'pworth of tar' as the saying goes . I have already bid on a PRO 1 CP so fingers crossed that's in the bag.

I tried your link but to be honest the meaning you were implying is lost on me (In my defence it was a fking long day in the office, followed by (my son's) maths and chemistry homework and two glasses on Rioja so I'm virtually brian dead ). Can you be bothered to spell it out for me please ?

Erm, well, I said the graphs were interesting. Fortunately I stopped short of saying I understood them ......

However ....

Given that they are B+W's measurements and one might assume that their optical quality (for purpose) is near the top of the tree. it seems safe to assume that these filter measured are about as good as anyone will get, individually.

The graphs appear to be showing transmission rates (or rather lack of transmission rates) for their glass across the light spectrum. Or at least that part of the spectrum that is meaningful in terms of our ability to use it. I think I am right in saying the a non-linear response will tend to be the reason for a colour cast as recorded on film or by a digital sensor. The effect of the cast may not be the same on all films (in fact it probably won't be the same) nor all sensors equally.

Now consider the effect of stacking the filters.

If the responses are quite consistent and level the adjustments in each wavelength will probably also be quite consistent thus accumulating to an even (enough) adjustment across the the entire spectrum. But if they are not linear the resulting aggregation seems likely to produce certain peaks that, when combined, translate into a colour cast.

To a human visible light is between 380nm and about 760nm so looking at the scale on the graph (under the technical tab in the linked page) at the bottom we can see that it aligns with the start of recognisable blue and stops one vertical axis bar from the right hand side where things are heading towards a very deep red. (Actually we should not be able to see that onthe graph but for represenational purposes we can let that go.

Ideally the light transmission figure for each type of filter should be a horizontal line between those two values. For the most part with most filters it is and so should give consistent neutral results (though I am not sure how the logarithmic scale should be interpreted in that respect). However at the extreme left (deepest blue) and the extreme right, especially for the 106 and 110 filters, there is some variance.

I would imagine that these differences are not important for all practical purposes even when aggregated by stacking. However I could see how filters made from more variable product that might have distinct shifts at certain point on the graph, could well end up with a very imbalanced colour transmission (in terms of how the sensor gathers its data) and so show the colour casts that are often mentioned.

I'm sure at least one person will have written a book about it somewhere on the net. In fact there may be a few blogs - who knows? Hopefully all we really need to know is which filters perform better than others and then buy on that basis and actually get around to using them. The latter being the most important consideration outwith which the rest is rather irrelevant I suppose.

A quick attempt at a search threw up this

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201...

which is sort of interesting.

The graph for the 110 does suggest a higher transmission of red - perhaps enough to be noticable.

People do reckon that Canon's are more sensitive to red than Nikons so maybe that is another factor to consider - but then we would also need to know whether monitors are calibrated, printers have been set up with calibration targets and so on .... hmm ..... time for bed I think.

Excellent stuff LQ (particularly at 3am ) thanks a lot for taking the time

The red colour cast is certainly *very* obvious when stacking Cokin filters - obviously my hope would be that this would not happen with a single screw on Hoya (and in fact I don't even know if you can stack them at all ?). If I buy an ND8 I would hope that would be enough for most purposes anyway.

Back at work now so I best get on with it, but will have a proper look at this at the weekend - thanks again

Dating from, er, a long way back, I have a number of Hoya filters and all have threads on the front that would allow stacking of filters, though of course to do so would normally be a limited requirement. I seem to recall they did screw in hoods as well. The filters that need to rotate - polarizers, half colour, graduated, etc., are mostly quite deep already (increasing the potential for vignetting with only one filter employed) so the front threads are reduced but would still work. They are needed anyway for clip on lens caps.

However the obvious limitation is that after a filter is added most lenses will show a vignette for a second and subsequent filters, especially if a wide angle lens at wide angle.

One way around that, for screw in filters, is to use a step-up ring (or two ...) and buy filters that are bigger than you largest diameter lens requires. Of course this can be expensive and, in extreme circumstances, may look damned silly.

I suspect, once one gets to that sort of requirement, the use of a filter holder system, such as Lee's, might make more sense in all respects unless one is an adventure photographer when fixing the screw-in type filters to the lens before hanging off the side of a mountain (or whatever) is probably a better idea.

Another benefit of screw-in filters, of course, is that you end up with only a single surface to keep free of dust/moisture/general crud once the filter(s) are in place whereas slot-in type filters will have multiple surfaces to keep an eye on.

Horses for courses. I suppose one should buy both types, store them in the back of the articulated equipment truck with all the other required gear, and use them according to need when you remembered they are there.