I want the best, and being half italian and having the uncontrollable urge to buy the best and most expensive i want to know what the best filters are..
I have been looking at B+W for a while but i want to know what other peoples opinions are on Tiffen, Hoya, Rodenstock etc
Singh-Ray are definitely the best in the areas where they lead. GND filters, warming polarizers, gold-n-blue polarizers. But It doesn't seem like they employ some of the fancy reflection reducing coatings that B&W and others use. So I think the answer is, It depends on the type of filter that you need. Generally it would seem that B&W and Singh-Ray do build extremely high quality filters and price them accordingly.
If you want to buy a filter that is just silly expensive, look at center spot filters for large format wide angles. The cheapest of these I've found is around $300 and they continue to go up from there.
Right, we're on the same page. I knew Singh-Ray didn't have any coatings on the GNDs, but I wasn't certain that they do not use a coating on any filter in their line.
B&W and Hoya and probably some others apply coating or multi-coating to some of their filters. Multi-coating can provide benefits in some situations.
Someone educate me here. I've been doing photography as a hobby for maybe 10 years. In all this time, I've been told that coated glass is far superior to uncoated glass. This superiority is why the lensmakers all switched to coated optics umpteen gazillion years ago.
Now, I am told Singh-Ray makes the best filters. They are also uncoated. Do the other mfgrs simply make really lousy filters in hopes the coatings will somehow save them? What's going on here? Is there something I missed in GLASS 101?
"... i was under the impression that multi-coatings were good as well.."
They are good but some here have erroneously decided (subjective reasoning) that they're not, so truth has gone out the window in favor of opinion, as opposed to basing decisions on easily verifiable (kitchen sink or lab) fact.
Take time to use your search engine to learn about reflective properties of glass and how these reflections impact image quality. Anti-reflective coatings reduces (doesn't eliminate completely) reflected light, allowing more light to be transmitted to film or sensor; increasing micro-contrast; resolution. To those who care about this stuff and it's impact on the photographic process, yes, it makes an easily verifiable difference. To those who don't, it doesn't because they don't care, so why bother as everybody else is to be forever condemned by their ignorance/indifference.
Cause I'm tired of childish (poorly thought out/immature, don't have a clue how it all works) arguing, I won't respond to "anything" posted in regard to my above, Again, I'll leave it up to you as to whether or not you'll choose to put forth the effort to better understand of what I write in my above, via the search engine.
When one shoots high contrast situations, where concern for flare is an issue, you'll come to appreciate the benefits of quality multi-coatings. Stacked filters used in the image below.
mrladewig wrote:
Right, we're on the same page. I knew Singh-Ray didn't have any coatings on the GNDs, but I wasn't certain that they do not use a coating on any filter in their line.
B&W and Hoya and probably some others apply coating or multi-coating to some of their filters. Multi-coating can provide benefits in some situations.
it pretty difficult to put the coatings on optical polymer then on glass.
BeeMan458 wrote:
"... i was under the impression that multi-coatings were good as well.."
They are good but some here have erroneously decided (subjective reasoning) that they're not, so truth has gone out the window in favor of opinion, as opposed to basing decisions on easily verifiable (kitchen sink or lab) fact.
Take time to use your search engine to learn about reflective properties of glass and how these reflections impact image quality. Anti-reflective coatings reduces (doesn't eliminate completely) reflected light, allowing more light to be transmitted to film or sensor; increasing micro-contrast; resolution. To those who care about this stuff and it's impact on the photographic process, yes, it makes an easily verifiable difference. To those who don't, it doesn't because they don't care, so why bother as everybody else is to be forever condemned by their ignorance/indifference.
Cause I'm tired of childish (poorly thought out/immature, don't have a clue how it all works) arguing, I won't respond to "anything" posted in regard to my above, Again, I'll leave it up to you as to whether or not you'll choose to put forth the effort to better understand of what I write in my above, via the search engine.
When one shoots high contrast situations, where concern for flare is an issue, you'll come to appreciate the benefits of quality multi-coatings. Stacked filters used in the image below.
