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B+W Filters


wilfredo

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Over the last few years I've transitioned over to B+W filters. I once read a thread on this forum that said they make the filters for Leica. Anyone have knowledge of this?

 

I really like the quality of B+W, can someone with more tech. knowledge than myself say why B+W is a better filter than say a Tiffen?

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The Leica UVa filters I have (pre-digital era) I believe where made by B+W, they are quite heavy but first class quality. When I received the two free filters after buying am M8 they are much lighter and do not seem to be of the standard of the Leica UVa filters. On the paperwork which came with the free UV/IR filters it stated that the where from Japan.

Another cost cutting exercise from Leica, which is okay with me since the filter mount is not critical to image quality, but the price of the UV/IR filters did not reflect this to the paying customer

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My understanding is that B+W make some filters for Leica including the Leica UV filters. They are single-coated. B+W's best filters are called MRC (for mult-resistant coat) and they are multi-coated.

 

The product name is B+W, not B&W. If you're looking for filters in a search engine B&W will give you odd results. The letters are short for Biermann and Weber, the names of the founders. Their company was merged into Schneider Optische Werke and the filters are now one of the Schneider-Kreuznach product lines.

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The UV/IR filters are not made by B+W, rather they are made in Japan but if it is Hoya or not I do not know.

 

I prefer B+W as the coating is better and the surface also appears to be very hard so they are easy to clean. There may be a problem using B+W on wide angles such as the 2.8/21 and 24, as the mount is so thick the hood cannot be attached with a filter in place.

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B+W are excellent they have several grades including proffessional quality. Look on their website. They also make filters in slim mounts for use with wide angle lenses. Another excellent quality German manufacturer is Heliopan. They also make a wide range including polarising filters with graduated markings on the revolving part which facilitates their use on rangefinder cameras.

 

I have found the following company in Germany stocks a very wide range of both the above makes of filters and will ship worldwide fotofilterversand.de - Spezialversand fr Fotofilter, Adapterringe und Zubehr . Contrary to what it says on their website they will accept credut cards if you call them.

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Be aware however that using the slim filter on a 24mm Elmarit will not allow the lens hood to be mounted. No problem with the standard filter, though as mentioned above by Peter it's a tight fit.

 

Neither can you use the current Leica clip-on lens caps, which engage with the filter threads (which the slimline ones don't have). Instead, B+W supply a push-on cap.

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Be aware however that using the slim filter on a 24mm Elmarit will not allow the lens hood to be mounted.

 

Well, apparently not all men, sorry, filters are equal then. A B+W slim UV-filter is attached to my Elmarit-M 24mm lens, and the lens hood is mounted, too. It is a tight fit, as mentioned above with regard to the regular B+W filters, but it does fit nevertheless. The outer diameter of the (my) slim filter corresponds to that of the lens carrying the filter thread, so from a technical point of view the lens hood must fit.

 

Andy

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Andy, that's interesting as I couldn't get the lens hood to fit when I bought a slimline filter. In the end I ordered a standard B+W and that did work - albeit still a very tight fit. The slimline filter that I bought had a larger outside diameter than the standard one. I wonder if B+W have changed the design at all?

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I wonder if B+W have changed the design at all?

 

Steve, my E55 slimline filter for the 24mm lens is about 3 or 4 years old. It is multicoated, but the coating is not yet of the currently used MRC type. I have another, newer slimline E49 B+W UV-filter for my Tri-Elmar 28-35-50, which is MRC coated, and that filter has an outside diameter which is even slightly smaller than that of the lens portion carrying the filter thread, so there is no problem in fitting the Tri-Elmar's lens hood either.

 

I don't know whether B+W at one time used filter rings having a larger OD (they must have, according to your experience), but in my view that would be silly, as it leads to the problems discussed above. Maybe they realized these problems at some point and then changed the design.

 

Andy

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I can't speak for Tiffen specifically, but I like B+W filters because they have nicely made brass mounts, have what appears to be good, durable coatings in the MRC varieties, and use high quality Schott glass. They have a good range of filters too. Even though the filters don't all use Wratten numbers, specs for a filter are relatively easy to find, and you can usually find out what kind of Schott glass was used for the filter and find the glass's spec sheet from Schott, if you had to. I also like how a several of their color filters (yellow, orange, red, IR) have the cutoff wavelength clearly labeled, like an 091 = RG630.

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