Fisheye for RB67

[Jeff Kubach]

Recently I just got a 37mm fisheye for my RB67 and what a heavy lens! Darn near need a forklift for the lens and body! Thank God I have a decent tripod for it. I have a filter that came with it a UV (40.5) and was wondering what other filters would be good. I would geuss that the polarizer would be out of the question since it is rear mounted.

Jeff

 

[Ian C]

The usual filters for B&W are useful: yellow, orange, and red should meet most of your needs. In some circumstances you might find green, or yellow-green useful. Rarely, you might want a blue filter.

Lenses, such as the Mamiya 37mm Fisheye lens (both RB67 and RZ67 versions), that use rear-mounted filters usually require a filter of some type mounted at all times to work properly.

Not only is a polarizer incompatible with a very short focal length lens due to polarizing only a small portion of the view, the small clearance between the outside diameter of the filter and the lens mount would make adjusting a polarizer (or any other type of free-rotating filter) difficult. It would also be difficult to install/remove any sort of free-rotating filter.

Worse, think of the problem you’d have if the threaded base of a freely-rotating filter stuck in the filter threads of the lens. There’s no clearance to get your fingers between the opening in the lens mount and the filter to get a grip on the threaded base of the filter. If the filter got stuck, you’d have to remove the lens mount from the lens to gain access to the base of the filter to remove it.

I think that this seller still has some modestly-priced and excellent new-in-the-box 40.5mm x 0.5mm filters:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

You’ll have to contact him to be sure.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Thanks Ian.

Jeff