I got mine a few days ago, Tuesday I think it was (impressively fast shipping as I ordered on Friday) and I really don't think its as bad as Ken makes it out to be for a mere $26.
No, its not the best polarizer I own, but for $26 I wasn't expecting anything very high quality. Theres a reason a good B+W multicoated is going to cost several times what this did.
For the typical P&S users I think this product will be more than satisfactory as its really not any worse than the generic brand filters you can buy off Amazon or Ebay for $10ish range and most people seem happy with those.
Certainly not the hard core enthusiast on this forum, but then again, I doubt anyone is sticking a $10 filter in front of a $1000+ lens either. Its just again an issue where because the RX100 is so good, its attracted a new type of user who's got standards and expectations that are far removed from the P&S market.
All is not lost though, the CarrySpeed magnetic holder design works quite well. The metal ring part is very very low profile, which is great and it seems to be a very solid hold.
I'm taking the glass out of mine and I'm going to glue the red magnetic ring to a 49mm step up ring.
Coming from a X100 and Sony NEX system I've got a ton of 49mm filters laying around I want to use.
Certainly would of been nice if it was a great CPL, but for the get go I basically thought I was buying just a mounting solution.
YOu can spend $40 for a plastic bayonet and double sided tape from lensmate, and then $15 for each bayonet mount filter ring, OR, you could spend $26 for the CarrySped one and do a bit of DIY.
I think the magnetic attachment is brilliant and they could honestly charge $26 for just some threaded magnetic rings and I'd buy
Or, one could just stick a step up ring with the threads on one side dremeled off to the lens barrel itself and you'd be in business. That would cost about $3
Lensmate even sells the double sided adhesive cut into a circle for you for $1 and should you not like it/need it, just dental floss it off, same as with their own filter holders
millsart wrote:
I'm taking the glass out of mine and I'm going to glue the red magnetic ring to a 49mm step up ring.
I just got mine and i think this is a great idea. How could I remove the glass I just ordered a step up ring from ebay for $2.
Edit: It actually is just screwed together. I just placed the filter in the center of the palms of my hands and rotated it counter clock wise and it unscrewed. The red ring isnt magnetic, their is a silver magnetic ring between the filter and the red ring. Ill have to glue the magnetic ring to the red ring then to a step up filter.
millsart wrote:
I got mine a few days ago, Tuesday I think it was (impressively fast shipping as I ordered on Friday) and I really don't think its as bad as Ken makes it out to be for a mere $26.
No, its not the best polarizer I own, but for $26 I wasn't expecting anything very high quality. Theres a reason a good B+W multicoated is going to cost several times what this did.
I agree that for the price (supposedly a cheap introductory price) one might expect a low quality filter.
The problem is they boldly advertise it as being multi-coated and it very clearly is not. That's just a bald faced marketing lie, which is my major objection. Don't lie to me about what I'm purchasing.
Secondly, badly aligned quarter wave plates cause image degradation on long telephotos. This is probably not a big issue for most of the uses with this filter - probably not for the RX100 at least. But it is a sign of very bad manufacturing and even most crappy polarizers do not exhibit this flaw.
A high quality non-multicoated circular polarizer in this filter size is about $18. It doesn't seem too much to ask for at least something with a properly manufactured quarter wave plate.
That also brings up another issue. Why is it a CPL in the first place? It should just be a linear for the cameras it is made for. That would make it cheaper to manufacture and wouldn't create image quality problems from bad quarter wave plates.
I think the folks that did this just don't know what they are doing...
Anyway, good idea about yanking off ring and using it for a DIY setup!
jorgegarcia wrote:
Edit: It actually is just screwed together. I just placed the filter in the center of the palms of my hands and rotated it counter clock wise and it unscrewed. The red ring isnt magnetic, their is a silver magnetic ring between the filter and the red ring. Ill have to glue the magnetic ring to the red ring then to a step up filter.
Good find. I tried it with mine. So the interesting question now is can I take apart a decent 42mm filter to get at its glass and swap that in. Hmmm....
Ken
EDIT: Hmmm.... 42mm not a standard filter size. 40.5 and 43 are the choices.
I don't know the specifics of this company but it sounds like its a smaller startup and probably had rather limited funds to invest to get this product to market.
It was probably an issue of them trying to find the cheapest possible overseas suppliers of parts and assembly. Its easy of course to spend a few bucks more and get quality when your buying one unit for yourself, but if you've got to commit to thousands of them, and you don't even know if your going to turn a profit, then I think its all too easy to want to go with the cheapest vendors who tell you that they offer a good product.
Really I think its the same as when any of us buy a generic knockoff from China, you just don't know what your going to get or how its going to hold up, but the price is always right.
I'm sure the CarrySpeed folks paid their money to some vendors overseas, probably China, who then promised they'd deliver a certain quality of a certain number by a certain timeframe, and which the CarrySpeed people hope would sell well enough to actually make a profit.
Who knows if a vendor subbed a cheaper quality CPL etc or what.
As or why a CPL,. well I can only guess, but I think thats just what most people are familiar with as you don't read much about linear polarizers these days.
Given this is a product marketed to the P&S crowd, it probably not worth the effort of trying to explain the difference between a CPL and linear and how a linear will work.
Its basically giving the consumer something they don't need because its probably easier than trying to convince them otherwise.
That all said, as Jorge stated, the filter comes apart really easily which is great.
(I actually looked online for circular magnets when I learned of this product thinking I'd just make my own but couldn't find anything)
A 46-49mm step up ring looks like it should fit perfectly though I haven't checked for vignetting.
Add a little JB Weld and I think I should have a nice little 49mm threaded filter holder that attaches with a magnet. Pretty cool for $26 plus $3
If anyone does have the CarrySpeed and isn't happy with it, I'd be willing to buy them off you, as I'd like to make one for each of my filters
Mine arrived by courier today (wasn't expecting it to come by courier!) It seems ok for the price, not the best CPL filter, but it's good enough for a P&S.
Who knows if a vendor subbed a cheaper quality CPL etc or what.
I don't think it is just "good quality" vs "low quality", there are specifications...
As I live in Hong Kong, shipping is $10.. a bit disproportionate to the overall price.
Can anyone tell me how secure the magnetic solution is? And am I the only one thinking to attach a diopter to RX-100? Everyone seems to interested in CPL/PL only.. I recently got a 52mm 250D for my NEX (because my 77mm 500D is way too big and heavy for NEX). I certainly would love to use it on RX-100 if possible since its macro mode is... well... close to non-existence..
I got a prompt reply from them. They claim it is multi-coated but based on their email it doesn't appear they have a good understanding of what they are talking about. Their heart is definitely in the right place and they appear to want to resolve the issue. They are happy to take a return.
I did a few more comparisons and took the filter apart as well for some basic analysis.
Compared to B+W MRC and Hoya HMC the rear of the Carry Speed is far, far more reflective - around an order of magnitude.
Compared to a Tiffen (single coated) the rear of the Carry Speed is about twice as reflective.
Compared to a piece of glass from a cheap discount picture frame the Carry Speed is equally reflective.
Taking the filter apart there are actually two elements, at the front is the CPL element (both polarizer and quarter wave plate), then a small silicone spacer gasket, and then another piece of glass. This rear piece of glass behaves as if it is uncoated.
The CPL element itself is less reflective than the rear piece of glass. It certainly has some sort of coating on it. Nothing as good as the other multi-coated filters but it seems similar to the single coated Tiffen.
Anyway, the good news is the manufacturer is responsive and maybe they will address this issue in the next batch.
For those that have the Magfilter and aren't happy with the glass and just want to use the magnetic part of the filter. You could just use the red ring, the magnet and the magnet housing ring (the three middle rings) then get a filter step up ring, grind the rear thread off the step up ring, then glue (or use double sided tape) the ring onto the Magfilter so you end up with a hybrid between the Magfilter, and the Jens filter adapter, but you have the ability to remove the holder, rather then having it stuck onto the front of the lens.
I made a mockup (although the 43mm step up ring I bought is a bit to big because I didn't know the size needed) It does work that way though, but you will need to use a smaller size ring (I've read other people using the 39mm rings).
The lip of the red ring fits near perfectly into the 46mm male threads on my 46-49mm step up ring.
CarrySpeed could easily buy up a bunch of $3 step up rings (which probably cos $0.25 each) and with a little glue attach them to their product and offer them as a magnetic 49mm filter ring and have a fantastic product.
Much cheaper than the Lensmate solution, with a thinner mounting method than the 1/8th" piece you have to glue on and also easier to take on/off due to magnets
Also much cheaper than Jens and again much thinner/faster to take on/off
Even would beat their own product as you can use a filter of choice, which is really the only weakness.
Again, I think a large section of their market will be happy with just the CPL, but if they sold their filter ringers as an additional option, for say $19.99, I think they'd do a pretty good business.
Heck, I could see them taking the magnet concept and making it popular with other system camera lens, not just compacts
Make a thin metal screw in ring you add to your lens, then you apply the magnetic ring to your filter and instead of screwing them in/out all the time, you just press it on.
Save lot of wear and tear on the lens threads, especially plastic ones, and just be a lot faster in the field with something like a 10 stop ND
Its always such a pain to have to unscrew the filter to focus/compose and then screw it back on for each shot.
Being able to just press it on/off on the fly would be really nice.
I received my Mag Filter the other day - however it has been cloudy til this morning. So I grabbed a couple of quick shots - with and without.
It is a simple solution - with decent build quality. I will admit it seems a bit reflective but it does work. I hardly ever use filters except for a CPL once in a while. The Zeiss lens on the RX100 does not usually need any help from a polarizer. However, this will do fine for an occasional need.
These shots are Jpegs straight out of the camera - resized only.
Another update. Have had an email exchange with the designer. They are looking into the best way to fix for future builds. They are also considering doing a threaded only version for using your own filter.
It sounds like their experience is mostly mechanical and so using the uncoated glass at the back may have been an oversight in the design. Seem like good people and I wish them the best of luck in getting a good product to market. What they are doing is challenging and risky but they do have a great idea here.
As Rick just demonstrated the filter does work fine, just keep direct sunlight off the front of it and it should do a decent job!
millsart wrote:
I got mine a few days ago, Tuesday I think it was (impressively fast shipping as I ordered on Friday) and I really don't think its as bad as Ken makes it out to be for a mere $26.
No, its not the best polarizer I own, but for $26 I wasn't expecting anything very high quality. Theres a reason a good B+W multicoated is going to cost several times what this did.
For the typical P&S users I think this product will be more than satisfactory as its really not any worse than the generic brand filters you can buy off Amazon or Ebay for $10ish range and most people seem happy with those.
Certainly not the hard core enthusiast on this forum, but then again, I doubt anyone is sticking a $10 filter in front of a $1000+ lens either. Its just again an issue where because the RX100 is so good, its attracted a new type of user who's got standards and expectations that are far removed from the P&S market....Show more →
Value for money is one thing. Whether you like the pic or not is another. If I had a choice between a good value for money filter which causes me not to like the pic and a 50$ which is the opposite I know what I'll choose.
Yakim, as someone who's posted in an enthusiast camera forum over 16,000 times, I think your valuation standards, both for image quality as well as equipment cost are going to be very, very different than the typical P&S owner who probably thinks paying even $26 for a filter is a bit pricey.
Just as a $900 Really Right Stuff tripod, no matter how sturdy it is, wouldn't sell well among the $19.99 Sunpaks on the shelf of the local Walmart store, $50+ high quality Schott glass filters for point and shoot cameras wouldn't sell well either.
Its not about individual valuation, but rather about group consumer mentality. Making a handful of high quality items at a higher price because you have a handful of customers isn't smart business. You instead need to figure out how your going to sell to thousands of customers because only with suitable volume would anyone hope to be able to recoup R&D cost and economies of scale on a start up product venture like this.
Yakim Peled wrote:
Value for money is one thing. Whether you like the pic or not is another. If I had a choice between a good value for money filter which causes me not to like the pic and a 50$ which is the opposite I know what I'll choose.
millsart wrote:
Yakim, as someone who's posted in an enthusiast camera forum over 16,000 times, I think your valuation standards, both for image quality as well as equipment cost are going to be very, very different than the typical P&S owner who probably thinks paying even $26 for a filter is a bit pricey.
Just as a $900 Really Right Stuff tripod, no matter how sturdy it is, wouldn't sell well among the $19.99 Sunpaks on the shelf of the local Walmart store, $50+ high quality Schott glass filters for point and shoot cameras wouldn't sell well either.
Its not about individual valuation, but rather about group consumer mentality. Making a handful of high quality items at a higher price because you have a handful of customers isn't smart business. You instead need to figure out how your going to sell to thousands of customers because only with suitable volume would anyone hope to be able to recoup R&D cost and economies of scale on a start up product venture like this.
All I said is that I will not go this route. It's perfectly understandable if others - and that refers both to manufactures and customers - choose to follow another.
Yakim Peled wrote:
All I said is that I will not go this route. It's perfectly understandable if others - and that refers both to manufactures and customers - choose to follow another.
I added a few spots of superglue to the magnetic ring itself and sandwiched it back between the red and black parts, and then added some glue around the lip of the red part and stuck it all together.
Now I've got 49mm threads on the front I can use anything from my filter collection with and that sticks on/off with the built in magnet. The little metal part that sticks to the front barrel is so slim you don't even know its there when your not using a filter.
I'm seeing no vignetting even with 2 stacked filters at 28mm equiv as well.
I just ordered a step up ring from ebay for $2.
