Dropped Polarizer Filter in the Merced...

While taking photos on my trip to Yosemite this past week, I was a bit of a dummy and while trying to do a macro shot of some reeds over the water instead of turning the front element of my polarizer (Hasselblad-brand linear polarizer), I instead apparently unscrewed the whole thing because all of a sudden the viewfinder got brighter and I heard a "plop." I didn't notice as I was turning the filter because mine was occasionally "grindy" and not super smooth anyway, so it didn't feel particularly unusual/different.

On the plus side, it did fall in relatively still and shallow water, so I was able to retrieve it. The water was a bit more silty where I was taking photos but I don't see any sand particles in the filter either. I think the water washed away some of the grease between the elements because it feels a bit more "grindy" overall (not sand grindy--just aluminum on aluminum or brass on brass--whatever the filter is made out of...).

As far as I can tell no water got between the elements, and I really don't see any visual defects after giving it a cleaning with lens cleaner.

I didn't think the Hasselblad polarizers were sealed--is there anything I need to worry about here if it looks fine to the naked eye? I took a bunch of photos after I dropped the filter, but I won't be able to develop those negatives and make prints for at least a week or two.

Just curious to know if anyone has been in this situation.

After it dries out I would only be concerned if there were fish between the filters. I have had problems keeping the filters clean in fish tanks.

I would lube the threads/element movements with a teflon base lubricant
1 st choice http://www.amazon.com/DuPont-Non-St...qid=1462071730&sr=8-13&keywords=dupont+teflon look foe a better price elsewhere.
2nd choice http://www.amazon.com/Tri-Flow-TF21...e=UTF8&qid=1462071953&sr=8-2&keywords=triflow check local hardware stores.

Considering their cost and reputation, I would think that Hasselblad polarisers are sealed, at least of the Kaesemann variety which will withstand the worst of weather and mishaps.

On the other hand, aluminium filters may not show anything initially but over time mineral attack of aluminium may occur. Any number of problems could develop over time, months or years after immersion. Setting the filter in a box of silca dessicant for week or so may help. I have had mishaps with KSM filters with no water ingress at all. At the extreme of disasters, I have also dropped and shattered a couple of these but not since I introduced a rule (there are rules for fumblefingered types like me!) in 2011 of fitting and removing filters to lenses close to ground level, irrespective of the inconvenience!

I do my filter fumbling above a camera bag, car seat, or a table.

hahahah Ive had it happen on several occasions. After adjusting the polarizer a few times not realizing I was actually unscrewing it, it fell off into the ocean, gone forever. Another time off a cliff. One time I did recover it, I had to take it apart to get water from in between the filters. My polarizer had a C spring clip holding the glass in so opening it up was easy.

I second using TriFlow

Reminds me of the time my 300mm in Copal-3 fell off the front of my Century 8x10 as I pointed it down to get a picture of the edge of a pond. A Copal-3 will release three bubbles when submerged as it fills with water.
Good thing I was only 5 minutes from home. I raced to the workbench, disassembled both front and rear cells and opened the shutter and hit it with a blow dryer. Ten years later the lens is still looks and works like new.

As I recall the retaining rings were held in place with a drop of lacquer or some other substance that could be dissolved with acetone.

...And precisely why I always turn my polarizers counter-clockwise (looking through the camera) when on a lens.

cramej said:

...And precisely why I always turn my polarizers counter-clockwise (looking through the camera) when on a lens.

Click to expand...

Counter-clockwise? As in removing it?

counter clockwise from the back is tighening it on.

paul ron said:

counter clockwise from the back is tighening it on.

Click to expand...

Yes that's the way to do it - anticlockwise when facing your composition at all times.

learned my lesson like this - out on a commercial shoot, I was holding my camera in my right hand and pointing with it, raising it from waist level - 'lets go over there' - at which point my loose 82mm slim polariser spun like a tossed coined into the air (in slow motion as it always is). It landed perfectly flat on some concrete paving, only a small scratch to the brass ring from literally 10 ft up. I am always your 'buttered side face down' sort of person, but this time someone upstairs intervened. At £130 each its a mistake I will never make again... anti clockwise - always!

Based on this thread, I have added the following to my list of tips:

"To prevent the accidental unscrewing of a mounted polarizing filter from a lens, only adjust the polarizing effect of the filter by turning its front element in the same direction as if screwing the filter onto the lens."

Thanks!

You've been lucky you could retrieve it... I believe that polluting rivers in National Parks with polarizer filters may result in a significant fine!

I've dropped a couple of light meters into icy streams in the high country; and not too long ago a hiking companion dropped a very expensive MF
Zeiss lens into the water a week out from the trailhead. But back in the truck I keep a little dessication box, with fresh silica gel inside a tight Tupperware container. A couple weeks stored in that often cures the problem, provided the water doesn't have significant mineral content. In other words, the trick works well with snowmelt, but wouldn't cure the nightmare of falling into a desert stream full of alkaline whatever.

DREW WILEY said:

I've dropped a couple of light meters into icy streams in the high country; and not too long ago a hiking companion dropped a very expensive MF
Zeiss lens into the water a week out from the trailhead. But back in the truck I keep a little dessication box, with fresh silica gel inside a tight Tupperware container. A couple weeks stored in that often cures the problem, provided the water doesn't have significant mineral content. In other words, the trick works well with snowmelt, but wouldn't cure the nightmare of falling into a desert stream full of alkaline whatever.

Click to expand...

Can I use a mixture of salt and rice instead of the silica gel?

I have baptised my Pentax Spot in Yosemite water. Magical stuff. I have not had to replace the battery for years! Bless you, Saint Adams!

"Can I use a mixture of salt and rice instead of the silica gel?"

Use white rice and cook for 20 minutes, covered.

I wrap everything in the pack in big plastic garbage bags, so even if I get dunked, my spare clothing, sleeping bag, and camera gear stay dry. I learned that the hard way as a kid when I went under after a coin toss to see who was going to tie off the rope at the other end of a Spring ford.
I spent four days in a makeshift igoo at 9,000 ft with no gear at all! My little early Pentax had to be sent in for service, but lasted thousands of miles
of mtn travel afterwards. But what happened to my friend recently is that he was testing out one of these new tent designs for another friend who
own a big-name outdoor equip company, which doesn't need poles because you substitute your own trekking poles. Well, then those are preoccupied
supporting the tent when you might need them! - like crossing a slippery creek at dusk with your expensive camera over your shoulder. We were
clear back in Kaweah Basin, the very furthest spot from a road in the Sierra. We salvaged his twisted ankle with a lot of duct tape. I whittled two
prosthetic legs from whitebark pine branches to replace the broken carbon-fiber legs on his Gitzo. One expensive Zeiss lens on his Contax 66 merely
had a dented filter thread, which I pried into functionality with another makeshift tool whittled from a pine stick. But the other lens went into the
creek and was distinctly "soft focus" thereafter. He sunned it out the best he could, then a week later when we reached our cars, I put it in my
little dessication box, and that gradually cleared up the fogging, and it never did need to be sent in for service. But the misadventure still didn't end,
because he had put the keys for his own vehicle in one of those little Hide-A-Key magnets behind a bumper. But some chipmunk or something had
gotten back there and absconded it. So we were wandering around the woods exhausted and filthy with headlamps, until after two hours we found it.
Then he decides to repack all his exposed rolls of 120 film from the trip still wearing that bright halogen headlamp. That ruined most of his exposures. Guess we all learn things the hard way.

In the summer of 1968 I was with my parents, brothers and grandmother when the lens cap slipped off of my father's new Konica AutoS1.6 and into the Wisconsin Dells. We never saw it again.