Update on Leica and 486 IR Cut Filters

[sean_reid]

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I recently got some more information from Leica about the IR-cut filters. Between the time that Leica sent me the "official" Schneider 486 filters and now, the specification for the Leica filter coatings has changed somewhat. As such the filters currently shipping as "Leica" filters are slightly different from a B&W 486. I'm told that the difference will be most noticeable on 21 mm and wider lenses. I'll confirm this as part of my testing.

 

Provisionally, I suspect that the following may be true: 24 mm and longer lenses will likely work fine with either the 486 or the "Leica" filters. 21 mm and wider lenses should use the "Leica" filters specifically. I'll confirm this empirically with tests over the next week or so. Guy's experience so far seems to match this as well.

 

The official statement given to me this morning simply reads:

 

""Leica Camera can only guarantee the correct function for the Leica Filters. Leica has no control about how, e.g., the coating of the B+W filters change in the series."

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

__

 

Sean Reid

http://www.reidreviews.com

[LJL]

Thanks for the info update, Sean. This seems to confirm my first observations about the new Lecia UV/IR filters when they first started shipping. The reflectivity of the Leica filters looks to be a bit less than the B+W. In my casual tests, there does not seem to be any differnce in image appearance/colors on lenses at 35mm and up. I have not yet been able to test below that range, but others have and report that 21 may work better with the Leica, as may 24, but 28 should be fine with the B+W or Leica filters.

 

Guy and I have already discussed and commented that the Leica filters do seem to work better for the WATE also. I am using a Leica filter on the CV 15/4.5 and am getting excellent results with no cyan contamination. Someone else reported the same with the B+W on the CV 15, but there may be some difference in how it was mounted.

 

Thanks again for your follow-up with Leica.

 

LJ

[sean_reid]

My pleasure.

 

For all of you who currently have a 49 mm IR-cut filter that says "Leica" on the mount - where did you get it? Leica USA doesn't have 49s or 55s in now and I'd like to get one to test on the WATE.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Hopeful a container came in this week from Germany and some are in there . I would say today and Monday we may see them surfacing in stores. I have 2 on order at Popflash one to replace the one i borrowed and one for my 135 apo if Camera West can find one for me , I have a credit there from a trade.

[gogopix]

well, I ordered a 49mm 486 B+W from foto-huppert to send to john for the WATE adapter, but I will like wait for the WATE, and also wait for the leica filter. Guy's samples seem to indicate the coating may be more effective (or different) on the Leica than 486 B+W.

 

Still would like to see a clever 'slip on solution for the filters, esp for these WA.

 

Guy, your shots with WATE are really nice, but correction will never be right until the camera reads the actual FL used. The problem is, the WATE is really a zoom! So for corrections people will need to stay with the fixed FL 18-18-21.

 

Curious, but these problems have a silver lining; we are all learning more about out tools!

 

In the end, this will be a more accurate instrument than the DMR; why? well, go back, and you will likely find, as I did, slight magenta all over (poly fabrics are more prevelant than you might think.

 

reagrds (and thanks to Guy, Sean and others unknown) who are addressing this (esp John and the profile workers etc.

[Artichoke]

the mention of coatings is of interest, particularly for me as I purchased a BW for my 21 coded Elmarit

I just did some tests with the filter on and using the ir/cut shooting both indoors with tungsten mixed light and outdoors, both wide open and stopped down

wide open there maybe very minimal (if any) vignetting and no color shift that I can discern

stopped down there is no problem at all, as I would have anticipated

another important question is whether there is a disadvantage to not having the BW filter coatings with the Leica filters ...some have questioned whether the uncoated Leica filters may be more prone to aberrations which have not been a problem for me with the BW ir/cut on my 21 Elmarit

[hammam]

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Thanks for the info, Sean.

 

Real nice to know, since Leica filters are nowhere to be found, won't ship from Leica until God knows when, and cost 50% more than any other brand.

 

Did they really have to alter the original specs of the B+W IR-cut filter instead of just tweaking software to its specs? Give me a break.

 

I had to buy four filters (two B+W, two Heliopan) because Leica didn't ship their promised filters, and now they're telling me I should trash them?

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Arthur if there is going to be any differnce it will be in the cyan cast but since you are seeing it as being clean with the B+W than your good to go. Now they only real difference after the cyan cast removal that maybe something is a very slight color shift globally which is fine becuase if it is global than just a WB will clean that up. But that is something that we can test for but really all we care about is the cyan cast removal, that is the critical part. i think personnally the B+W maybe a little stronger which maybe the case becuase leica has tweaked the firmware for the leica filters and reason you may see a slight color shift and that is more a feeling about it than actually testing the difference which at this point no a issue because it is global effect and easily corrected. That is the only possible downside i see using the B+W from 21mm up and really no reason to switch them out in this range. However if the 21mm is good which i have not really tested that focal length except for the WATE which looked pretty good with the B+W. But 16mm and 18mm the B+W did NOT get rid of the cast completely if i wanted 18mm FL to look good i set the menu on 16mm. So for the WATE and CV15 i am highly recommending the leica filters and aviod the extreme wides with the B+W and that is exactly what i did was went leica filters on the WATE and LJ images on the CV15mm with the leica filter look perfect so it is safe to say the leica filter for that in 39mm and fitted inside the front shroud.

 

Now it is nice to hear the leica 21mm works with the B+W because we have to wait longer on the leica filter so that is your only choice at the moment

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Victor the leica filters on the WATE are going through the whole range very well and actually if your in between the FL settings it still is doing the job very well

[ken_tanaka]

Thank you for passing this item along, Sean. Like others who bought B+W 486 IR cut filters while waiting for Leica's filters to arrive, I am a bit concerned and confused. I would think that the "486" designation refers to a filter's characteristics with a great deal of specificity. But perhaps Leica's are not truly 486s?

 

My B+Ws seem to do their job just fine so far. It will be interesting to see if Leica's perform differently (if they ever arrive here).

 

Also, fwiw, the 486 filters seem to have no affect on the "cyan cast" problem. I have not yet used firmware 1.1 enough to say whether or not it fixed this issue. But I can say that the problem seems independent of filters. Not to digress here but to me this is the most significant problem I've encountered with the camera, as it's nearly impossible to fix.

[gogopix]

Victor the leica filters on the WATE are going through the whole range very well and actually if your in between the FL settings it still is doing the job very well

 

THAT is a big deal, and worth while getting the right filters.

 

I think Leica may have tested the filters from B+W and adjusted for precisely this reason. I for one am glad for any adjustment. We don't buy Leica to compromise!

 

:-)

[sean_reid]

Hopeful a container came in this week from Germany and some are in there . I would say today and Monday we may see them surfacing in stores. I have 2 on order at Popflash one to replace the one i borrowed and one for my 135 apo if Camera West can find one for me , I have a credit there from a trade.

 

Apparently none of the 49s or 55s yet.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

the mention of coatings is of interest, particularly for me as I purchased a BW for my 21 coded Elmarit

I just did some tests with the filter on and using the ir/cut shooting both indoors with tungsten mixed light and outdoors, both wide open and stopped down

wide open there maybe very minimal (if any) vignetting and no color shift that I can discern

stopped down there is no problem at all, as I would have anticipated

another important question is whether there is a disadvantage to not having the BW filter coatings with the Leica filters ...some have questioned whether the uncoated Leica filters may be more prone to aberrations which have not been a problem for me with the BW ir/cut on my 21 Elmarit

 

The Leica filters aren't uncoated, the coating is just a little different now from that of the 486. Or that's what I'm told.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

Thanks for the info, Sean.

 

Real nice to know, since Leica filters are nowhere to be found, won't ship from Leica until God knows when, and cost 50% more than any other brand.

 

Did they really have to alter the original specs of the B+W IR-cut filter instead of just tweaking software to its specs? Give me a break.

 

I had to buy four filters (two B+W, two Heliopan) because Leica didn't ship their promised filters, and now they're telling me I should trash them?

 

Someone else made the same comment to me earlier today. I don't know why the change was made but I would hope that it was to make the whole system more effective. I'll need to test to confirm but the B+W filters may be just fine for 24 mm and longer lenses (which covers most lenses). 21 mm might be OK as well. Unless I see a reason not to, I will continue to use 486s on all my lenses that are longer than 21 mm.

 

So, it seems to me that using an actual Leica branded IR-cut filter will be most important for the WATE and for those who are filtering the CV 15 and Zeiss 15. With any luck, then, it will only be these three lenses that are so "filter sensitive". There's also the CV 12 to consider but filtering that lens for IR is already problematic because it doesn't have a correlated Leica lens for coding.

 

I can't start my own testing until tomorrow but I'd be curious to hear from people who are now using the following: 21mm lens + 486 + M8 + 1.102

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[hammam]

Thanks, Sean, that's some solace

 

I will try the C/V 21 with B+W 486 and Heliopan and see. I may also get the C/V 15. Now, of course, no coding, so let's hope for the best.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I agree Sean the 21mm is the one we are just on the fence about and for users of the 21mm and a B+W please try and give some feedback on this lens so we know where we stand on the 21mm. On the WATE it seems okay either way at the 21mm setting but the Elamrit 2.8 we need to know about , I don't have one to test. Thanks

[Photoskeptic]

LJ, what size did you get for the CV 15? In the little info packet which came with the lens, they advise the 15 cannot take a filter, though there are threads cut into the shade.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I did some experimentation tonight with my CV15/4.5, a white wall, and tungsten illumination.

This is a worst-case example, because of the higher red content and the greater amount of long wavelength reds waiting to be cut out by the vignetting effect of the IR-cut filter.

 

I shoot with the lens focussed at infinity, two feet from the wall to blur things. First, the natural color temperature, determined by white balancing at the center of the image in C1,

is 2500K, with a color shift of -6 (in the green direction, correcting for warmth). With an E39 Leica UV/IR filter the color temperature is 2550 K and the shift needed is -1. That's a very slightly colder temperature, but 5 C1 units cooler (greener) than without the filter. The B&W 486 filter also white balances to 2550 K with a shift of +1, so it is 2 units cooler than the Leica filter.

 

The cutoff effects of the B&W 486 are also stronger than the Leica filter. Just measuring the depression of the red channel compared to the green channel, and using intensity (the square of the RGB numbers, to undo the gamma correction), the 15/4.5 even with no filter shows a 10% depression of the reds in the extreme corners of the image (due to the existing IR filter). The Leica filter (with no corrections applied in firmware) depresses the red intensities by 30% and the B&W 486 depresses reds by 40% in the corners. It is a small but noticeable difference in this case. The difference should be smaller in daylight.

 

The filters are definitely not the same, but I suspect many of us can live with the B&W filters.

 

scott

[carcam]

Where does one buy Leica IR cut filters? I see B&W but no Leica. Thanks

[scott kirkpatrick]

Where does one buy Leica IR cut filters? I see B&W but no Leica. Thanks

 

Some big retailers, like B&H and Adorama, have been listing them. Popflash carries them. I don't really see the need, except for those Leica lenses which have problems with the lens cap or lens hood not attaching properly when a filter is mounted.

 

scott

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Hallo,

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