Remember to lubricate filter threads before mounting on a newish Leica Camera or Lens - or else!

[wlaidlaw]

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See the title above. I was out in the Caribbean over Christmas staying with relatives. I had my Q3 with me, which was still fairly new. I had brought out a new Hoya Nano 2 circular polariser filter with me, as in the bright hard sunlight of the Caribbean, this limits the washed out appearance some images can have and reflections off water. I did not have any of my photographic tool kit with me, so I just screwed the filter on without lubricating the thread. This morning, I wanted to remove the filter. Now like nearly all Pola filters the Hoya has a  very narrow threaded mounting collar at the lens side and a rotating front section to turn the pola filter to its optimum position. Could I get the filter off - no way. In the end I had to use a jeweller's screwdriver and a tiny hammer to tap the very narrow serrated inner collar anti-clockwise, to loosen it, before it would unscrew. The Q3 makes this even more difficult as there is a raised ring around the filter mount thread, nearly blocking access to the narrow filter mounting ring.

I should have known better when I first mounted a new filter on a newish camera, as I have had a jammed filter before. Even though I did not have the ideal lubricant with me in the Caribbean, (I usually use non-drying or oxidising micronised Teflon/silicone grease), in the short term, a tiny dab of sun tan cream would have worked, which I could have cleaned off on my return. I assume that Leica chemically clean all their metal surfaces and if you screw in a new and equally clean aluminium alloy filter or step up ring, in effect it will weld itself to the camera and be fiendishly difficult to get it to unscrew. Don't do like I did folks is my advice and lubricate those filter threads. 

Wilson

[FrozenInTime]

I use a pencil  to lay down some graphite on new threads ... seems to work.

[wlaidlaw]

56 minutes ago, FrozenInTime said:

I use a pencil  to lay down some graphite on new threads ... seems to work.

Good idea. Much less messy than silicone grease. 

Wilson

[lct]

Or else... put the lens ant its filter upside down on a rubber surface (eg a rubber sole) and turn them anti clockwise while pressing them gently onto the rubber. May work perfectly... or not

[wlaidlaw]

8 hours ago, lct said:

Or else... put the lens ant its filter upside down on a rubber surface (eg a rubber sole) and turn them anti clockwise while pressing them gently onto the rubber. May work perfectly... or not

I have a selection of things looking a bit like rubber bath plugs, that I can use for removal of lens rings and filters. However they will not work with a polarising filter, as the front ring with the filter element, is free to rotate to get the best polarising effect. 

Wilson

[masjah]

Wilson, I've got a clear protective filter on my Q3, and your post made me hasten to check it out! It did actually come off without any bother at all, but I also have a very cheap plastic Jessop's filter wrench which fits easily round the filter rim. I would have thought that it would also easily fit on the non-rotating part of a polariser (on the lens side). No use in the Caribbean though if it's back in the UK, but it takes up almost zero space!

 

[wlaidlaw]

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20 minutes ago, masjah said:

Wilson, I've got a clear protective filter on my Q3, and your post made me hasten to check it out! It did actually come off without any bother at all, but I also have a very cheap plastic Jessop's filter wrench which fits easily round the filter rim. I would have thought that it would also easily fit on the non-rotating part of a polariser (on the lens side). No use in the Caribbean though if it's back in the UK, but it takes up almost zero space!

 

John,

I do have a rubber strap filter wrench for removing filters but I could not get enough of the strap in contact with the very slim inner ring of the Hoya Nano 2 pola filter. The problem is that if you look at the front of the Q3 lens, there is a raised lip just outboard of  the filter thread, blocking access to the inner ring of a rotating pola filter. I had to use a jeweller's screwdriver and small tack hammer to tap the inner ring of the filter round to the point where it was loose enough to remove by hand. Even after lubricating the mounting thread, you have to be very careful about only tightening the inner ring very gently onto the lens or it is a pig to get off.

Wilson

 

[masjah]

47 minutes ago, wlaidlaw said:

John,

I do have a rubber strap filter wrench for removing filters but I could not get enough of the strap in contact with the very slim inner ring of the Hoya Nano 2 pola filter. The problem is that if you look at the front of the Q3 lens, there is a raised lip just outboard of  the filter thread, blocking access to the inner ring of a rotating pola filter. I had to use a jeweller's screwdriver and small tack hammer to tap the inner ring of the filter round to the point where it was loose enough to remove by hand. Even after lubricating the mounting thread, you have to be very careful about only tightening the inner ring very gently onto the lens or it is a pig to get off.

Wilson

 

Ah, I see what you mean Wilson. Clearly no problem for a plain glass protection filter. If I wanted to use a polariser on my Q3, I wonder if I could use a step-up ring and mount a 60mm polariser I already have. Maybe removing the step-up ring (with 60mm polariser still attached) would be possible?

(But then of course I'd have to live without the lens hood.)

Edited March 8 by masjah

[wlaidlaw]

John,

I have just bought a Polar Pro magnetic lens hood at considerable cost, to facilitate using the 49mm Hoya Nano Mk.2 pola filter. It is OK as long as you only screw the filter on very gently. 

Wilson

[250swb]

Something you'll know about Wilson, make a strap wrench. A thin flat shoelace is ideal, twist the ends tight and turn.

[andybarton]

What’s wrong with using a normal polarising filter?

[pedaes]

32 minutes ago, andybarton said:

normal

It sounds 'normal'. Polarisers have two elements and you turn the front one to find polarised light and they tend to make the two mounts very thin so the filter appears no thicker than, say, a UV filter. To mount/unmount you have to turn only the fixed element.

 The only filter that can't be reproduced in post-processing and can give some great enhancements to images. Good ones ain't cheap though.

[masjah]

46 minutes ago, andybarton said:

What’s wrong with using a normal polarising filter?

Andy, as Wilson points out above, the Q3 has a small "lip" around the outer bit of the lens (where a filter screws in). This means the the "fixed" (lens facing) part of a polariser is a bit less accessible than usual, so that it is more difficult to grasp if the threads "freeze". (Note that there is no problem at all with other filters that don't have a rotating front half.) Wilson points out above that this means that there's not enough "thickness" available to wrap round a conventional strap wrench (or shoelace for that matter!).

I've already got high quality (and expensive) B+W 60mm and 67mm polarisers, so I've just ordered a high quality brass (not aluminium) 49-67mm step-up ring in order to use one of my existing polarisers on my Q3. BTW a brass ring would be much less likely to have its threads freeze on the lens, but in any case it would be easily graspable to remove it.

 

[andybarton]

27 minutes ago, pedaes said:

It sounds 'normal'. Polarisers have two elements and you turn the front one to find polarised light and they tend to make the two mounts very thin so the filter appears no thicker than, say, a UV filter. To mount/unmount you have to turn only the fixed element.

 The only filter that can't be reproduced in post-processing and can give some great enhancements to images. Good ones ain't cheap though.

 

9 minutes ago, masjah said:

Andy, as Wilson points out above, the Q3 has a small "lip" around the outer bit of the lens (where a filter screws in). This means the the "fixed" (lens facing) part of a polariser is a bit less accessible than usual, so that it is more difficult to grasp if the threads "freeze". (Note that there is no problem at all with other filters that don't have a rotating front half.) Wilson points out above that this means that there's not enough "thickness" available to wrap round a conventional strap wrench (or shoelace for that matter!).

I've already got high quality (and expensive) B+W 60mm and 67mm polarisers, so I've just ordered a high quality brass (not aluminium) 49-67mm step-up ring in order to use one of my existing polarisers on my Q3. BTW a brass ring would be much less likely to have its threads freeze on the lens, but in any case it would be easily graspable to remove it.

 

I get all this, but if a fixed UV filter fits into the thread, why not the fixed element of a polarising filter, which would give more grippable area when removing?

[wlaidlaw]

Expensive/good quality polarising filters (cheap ones introduce all sorts of unwanted effects) are pretty much all slimline nowadays, as John says above, with a very narrow fixed (non-rotating) threaded back part, so that they don't interfere with a lens hood and leave room for your fingers to get inside the lens hood to turn the rotating front part with the filter. My stiff uncooperative fingers still struggled to get inside the oddly shaped Q3 standard hood, which is why I purchased a Polar Pro Magnetic swing up (or down) hood, where the hood can be swung out of the way, the filter adjusted and the hood then swung back down, a process which only takes a few seconds. My Hoya Pola filter was still on from being in Barbados over Christmas, as I have been using my M10-R and M4-P cameras recently since getting back. Before fitting the new hood, I was trying to remove the Hoya filter, when I encountered the welded on filter problem, compounded by the raised ring surrounding the filter mounting thread on the Q cameras. It was a new Hoya filter, I had bought just before going to Barbados and my Q3 is also relatively new, hence the very clean filter mounting threads on both sides. Before mounting the filter, I had also cleaned the Q3 front element and the filter with Zeiss iso-propyl alcohol wipes, which probably made things worse. Even now after lubricating the threads, a rotating slimline pola filter is difficult to remove from a Q camera, due the ring around the filter threads, so you have to be careful to screw the filter in only very gently. John's solution above, with a step up ring would be a good idea but having just bought the quite expensive Polar Pro hood and already having the high quality 49mm Hoya filter, I am not minded to throw them away. 

Wilson

[Alberti]

I had a similar problem with a 24mm hood that stuck. Went to the Store to help me out. They have the tactile knowledge I don't. Well, it came off, and then I saw there was some white Alu-oxide powder: the whole had gotten wet and hence chemistry made it stick.

NOW IT IS TOO LOOSE. And I use some invisible cellotape now - which peels off all the time. . So I like the idea of a sticky grease, like thick silicone. I'll try that (not sun tan...)