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WATE Filter Adapter Questions


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I received john s WATE filter adapter and also found a 49mm Leica UV/IR filter . Assembly isn t as difficult as I expected but I have a few questions. (1) Just to be sure I have the glass facing out ....How can you tell when looking at the glass. I believe I kept it facing out but now I am not positive..so before I really tighten the retaining ring....How can I tell (2) Did the WATE itself come with a rubber o ring to seat the lens hood? I don t have one . (3) How tight should the retaining ring be.....my glass still rotates and I have a very small rattle....should be tighter? (4) The hood seems overly tight with the o ring on the outer thread ...has anyone else had this problem? Seems to fit great without it. Overall this looks like a really great product. I also have the Leica filter holder and the B+W Slim UV/IR option....the JM adapter looks like a big improvement.

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I have a WATE and the adapter, but no filter so I can answer some of your questions. The WATE does ship with with an o-ring for the hood. However, the ring for the adapter is a larger width. I have a problem with the adapter fitting too tightly with the supplied o-ring. The problem with puting the adapter on without an o-ring is that it may get loose. I found a supplier for narrower width o-rings, but they won't sell less that 20.

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(4) The hood seems overly tight with the o ring on the outer thread ...has anyone else had this problem?

 

The o-ring thickness is critical to how the adapter/hood tightens down. You want the ring to go into compression in the last 30 degrees of roation or about 0.1mm of movement. Leica's o-ring is 1mm thick but when I bought (100!) rings from a supplier here, the red thread would not tighten. I specified 45mm diameter to stretch over the ~50mm diameter of the thread, maybe it should have been a larger diameter to reduce the thickness-reducing effect of the stretch.

 

Problem is, these o-rings don't come in an infinity of sizes and you can buy kits to allow you to make your own rings - cut from stock and glued together. The next thickness up from the supplier I bought from is 1.5mm which is too thick for the red thread.

 

John's o-ring I think is 1.5mm (or maybe 1/16" as the US sticks doggedly to old units of measurement) and it is a bit tight. I found though that working it allows you to tighten the hood on the front of the adapter and leave it there. In use, you are more likely to want to remove the adapter from the lens than the hood from the adapter. You could also try running a soft lead pencil around where the hood presses onto the o-ring to lubricate things a little.

 

I was using the WATE a lot this past weekend and was very pleased not to have to use Leica's 67mm filter adapter.

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the compression on the O-ring was set to about .005" by measuring the gap when the hood comes on the stop with the O-ring not installed compared to the O-ring cord thickness. I machined the adapter to set this compression to match what my O-ring suppier provided (1.5mm cord). So far only three people have found the fit too be too tight; one suggestion was to lightly lubricate the O-ring with enough vaseline to just leave a slight shine. I'll take another look at this in the next editon.

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I also found the O ring John supplied to be a little tight. I applied the smallest amount of silicone grease to the ring and wiped it off lightly with a cloth, that seemed to help. Once you have the hood screwed up against the end stop it's not a problem since you rarely need to remove the hood from the adapter.

 

Bob.

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A smidgin of vaseline works a treat on the O ring.

The retaining ring was only partialy black adonised but a quick spray of mat black got it sorted.

Leicas tolerances for the lens pouch are too tight,which is a shame,as the WATE wont go back in it !

jm will have to supply a redesigned pouch as an extra extra :D

Very pleased with the adapter i recieved from jm

rf

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This forum is great! Thanks to all that replied ..here is how I solved the problems. (1) Hood too tight with o ring......very small application of petroleum jelly. Slowly tighten and untighten a few times...perfect tight fit but not frozen. (2) Tightening the retaining ring.....large pencil eraser....again first made sure the surfaces were clean with alcohol wipe...then worked it several times without the glass..finally just used the eraser to finish the tightening...no movement of the glass (3) filter direction.....should have avoided this one ..John recommended reflecting light onto a sheet of paper..the correct side reflects a noticable amount more . The adapter fits nicely on the WATE without the original o ring ..which I misplaced ...anybody know where I can get another..is the size mark referring to above what i need . I realize I can go to Leica ..I will be in Solms next month...Again thanks to all that contributed .

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It looks like the ...hood to the adapter.....fits perfectly..its tight but can be removed. The adapter to the WATE is my ..problem?..lost the o ring ...however the adapter to the WATE seems to fit nicely ..its tight ..has a full stop in the adapter thread to insure alignment. My guess is that this may loosen a bit over time thus the need to get a replacement o ring?

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Roger,

 

In regard to your question about which way the glass is supposed to face:

 

I believe the way to check is that when you touch the outer surface (facing away from the lens) with a piece of tissue paper it should look as if the tissue paper is not really touching the glass; whereas, if you do the same to the inner surface the paper appears to be touching the glass surface.

 

Can someone else confirm this as well as explain the phenomenon?

 

Doug

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The following applies to both the B+W and Leica UV-IR cut filters.

 

Both sides of the filter glass are coated. One side has the multi layer UV-IR intereference filter and the other side ant-reflection layers and possibly an additional abrasion resistant surface layer (B+W MRC).

 

When viewed at an oblique angle the UV-IR coating acts strongly as a magenta colored mirror whereas the anti-reflection layers appear as a very much weaker greenish blue color.

 

If you place the corner of a white piece of paper against the UV-IR side and view the filter obliquely you will see that the corner of the paper touches it's magenta reflection. If the paper is against the anti-reflection side you see two reflections, one very faint blue/green reflection which touches the corner of the paper and another strong magenta reflection which is separated from the paper by twice the thickness of the glass. (The reflected image of the paper is as far behind the magenta mirror as the paper is in front of the mirror.) To see this effect clearly it's important that the light which shines on the paper is behind you.

 

So the side where the magenta reflection touches the paper is the UV-IR filter. The consensus seems to be that the UV-IR filter side should face the lens since those coatings are believed to be more delicate.

 

About half the B+W filters I purchased had the UV-IR side facing outwards, so I removed and reversed the glass in the mount. With the two leica filters I have the UV-IR side faces the lens.

 

Bob.

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