It still pays to research. Hoya filters in tests have shown to be much better than the much more expensive Heliopan filters.
And actually Leica filters rule them all. lensrentals.com had a test that showed those results.
Why would anybody spend many hundreds of dollars on camera and lens only to be chintzy about filters?
I want to get a few colored filters for black and white film photography - yellow, orange, and red. These will be used with Konica Hexanon AR lenses on a Konica Autoreflex T4, and possibly also with my Pentax MX gear, using step up rings.
There are tons of used filters available on eBay at reasonable prices. Can I consider any filter which was "made in Japan" in the analog heydays to be of reasonable quality? Or would it be worth the extra time and cost to seek out a more modern filter from Hoya or B+W with multicoating? By "reasonable quality" I mean, am I going to see any difference in image quality between a moderate quality filter compared to the top shelf ones?
Right now I have my eye on a set of Toshiba brand filters, made in Japan, but I can't find any specific info to tell me if the Toshiba filters were "cheap" filters - or comparable to the ones Canon, Minolta, and Nikon were putting their names on back in the 1970s.
And how would the 1970s Canon, Minolta, and Nikon filters compare to modern filters by Hoya, Marumi, or B+W?
Yep! I use older original Zeiss and Leitz filters on some of my older lenses, but limit my filter purchases to high quality products by B+W, etc. Tiffen filters are more reasonably priced, and are widely used by cinematographers.
Why would anybody spend many hundreds of dollars on camera and lens only to be chintzy about filters?
If I cannot get the desired filters from those companies I will buy Hoya and Tiffen filters, but avoid the low cost low quality filters.
Every link in the optical path is important. The image quality is only as strong as the weakest leak. If possible both the lens and the filter should be multicoated.
This is what I was taught at Kodak.
I recommend glass multicoated filters. The quality matters. I use Hasselblad, Heliopan, B+W, then Tiffin, Hoya, ... never gels since they are somewhat fragile and the can be problems from handling, storage and mounting.
What about graduated ND filters?
I never had one and I will probably never want one. I am happy with the real world and do not need an artificial horizon.
Thirty-oneMy post 41 linked test which included Tiffen, which was the worst result of that test series.
What film do you suggest to use for the real world? Or is digital more real? How about lenses? Which one is the most real?
Digital is for people who can only deal with two states: 0 or 1, True or False, On or Off, Right or Wrong, Right or Left
Would you rather lose a leg, or an arm? All that only applies to 1-bit
...5-bit digital lets you chose which finger/toe gets taken v which ear, and a few other options.
...With 8-bit digital you have 256 variants in between True v False, Far right v Far left (moderation in between), Black v White.
Photrio is no longer analog v digital, it has hybrid too, but some traditionalists have a hard time adjusting. Oil or acrylic? what about watercolor?!
My prior comment was made in jest, about the analog vs. digital very polar sentiments that can be found on this forum. Besides, most 'digital' in cameras is 14-bit. I have no agenda it this regard. I shot film for 50 years, I shot digital for about 18 years, I still own both.
Now we're discussing the backing of enlargement paper?!
I choose between high-end brands based on their specific selection. MC Hoya are every bit as good optically as B&W or Heliopan, maybe better in certain cases, and easier to clean in my opinion. But one point not even mentioned yet is how different kinds of microfiber lens cloths or solutions might work slightly differently in that respect. Brass versus anodized aluminum rings? - not that big a deal. Brass is nominally superior, but also quite a big heavier if you need to carry a quantity of them of larger diameter backpacking, for example. There's also quite a cost differential independent of actual optical performance.
I still do not have a need for the graduated filter.
My issue is the need to finely adjust the position of the graduated filter vertically to suit the location of the horizon as framed, yet the systems which I am familar with are not necessarily well designed to hold that position.
Having camera on tripod helps, but one hand for holding the filter and the other hand for the shutter does not alleviate enough any inadvertant change in the vertical placement of the filter while also peering into the eyepiece.
and using a filter needing vertical fine positioning, while sticking one's head under a Large Format camera dark cloth, and then also needing to insert a sheet film holder and withdraw the dark slide...one needs to be an octopus!
That is primary among my objections. Next is the artificial demarcation of the horizon that may appear.
Indeed. Horizons are not always nice straight lines...sometimes land masses break the horizon, sometimes the horizon is a jagged city skyline, and sometimes the horizon is a curve.
Besides one could use a piece of cardboard in the darkroom to darken the sky with out the super useless graduated filters. The card board can be used to make a graduated sky.
Filters. Eh heh. I fell for this too, in the 1980s when I bought heavily into Nikons. Got them all. Nikkors. Top dollar ones.
Now and then I've used a yellow. Also an orange. Maybe once, a red. The rest lie at rest in their nice plastic cases, pristinely new, unused. A small fortune in glass.
In all my time in photography, every pro shooter I've ever met used (and still uses) clear UVs. So I bought Nikkor UVs. Every lens I own has one.
And that's all. Nowadays it can all be added in post processing.
Odd, this. They do what they do well, but we can get by just as well without.
So what I'm saying is, get UVs, but for the rest, save your money.
What about graduated ND filters?
Besides one could use a piece of cardboard in the darkroom to darken the sky with out the super useless graduated filters. The card board can be used to make a graduated sky.
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