A thin-ring polarizer for the CZ16-80

[edrice]

I hoping this is the right place for this question.

Since acquiring the CZ16-80, I find my Hoya Moose warming polarizer vignettes at 16mm and so need to find a slimline or thin-ring polarizer.

Has anybody used one that does not vignette on the 16-80 at the wide end?

Has anyone run across one of these that is also a warming polarizer?

A 62mm one of these?

Thanks,
Ed

[David Kilpatrick]

The Minolta 62mm polarizer is in an ultra-thin mount - Minolta branded polarizers are all wide-angle designs, intended for 17mm on full frame or equivalent, so getting one of these should be safe. B+W also make a special w/a polarizer. Both these makes are absolutely neutral - very neutral, no warming effect. You can set a custom WB on the camera which will have the same effect. I suggest setting 6500K.

Have you confirmed that it is in fact your polarizer doing the vignetting? I have found that the 16-80mm has slight sudden corner vignetting at 16mm without any filter and it might even be the lens hood to blame when focusing on infinity. A regular thick mount traditional pol would definitely vignette.

David

[edrice]

The Minolta 62mm polarizer is in an ultra-thin mount - Minolta branded polarizers are all wide-angle designs, intended for 17mm on full frame or equivalent, so getting one of these should be safe. B+W also make a special w/a polarizer. Both these makes are absolutely neutral - very neutral, no warming effect. You can set a custom WB on the camera which will have the same effect. I suggest setting 6500K.

Have you confirmed that it is in fact your polarizer doing the vignetting? I have found that the 16-80mm has slight sudden corner vignetting at 16mm without any filter and it might even be the lens hood to blame when focusing on infinity. A regular thick mount traditional pol would definitely vignette.

David

Yes, I've just tested it and without filter or hood, there is no clipping. With hood there is no clipping, or if there is it so slight as to not be worth concern.

I tried it with a Hoya UV filter that extends out exactly 5mm from the lens when mounted snugly. There is just a hint of clipping at 5mm.

So this being the case, I could live with a polarizer that is 5mm or less.

The standard Hoya polarizer clips badly and is just not suitable.

David, when you mentioned that Minolta made an ultra-thin one, it reminded me that you had some filters on your website at one point. I presume it would be foolish of me to ponder whether any of those could be the Minolta one in question, at 62mm, or that Minolta thin polarizers are still availble somewhere.

Other than that, I guess I'd look at B&W or some other name brands.

Ed

[edrice]

Well, I see that the Konica Minolta Circular Polarizer II (thin) is still available out there.

Does anyone know if this filter is multi-coated? Can't seem to track down much in the way of technical specs.

Ed

[braeside]

I'm having the same problems

I have just confirmed that at 16mm I get extra corner darkening with a standard 62mm pol filter and also with a 62/67mm step-up ring with a standard 67mm pol filter attached.
The step up ring on its own causes no effect. A thin 62mm UV filter is also fine.

[edrice]

I think I may have found a solution.

Amazon lists a double-threaded, thin, multi-coated polarizer -

http://www.amazon.com/Hoya-Super-HMC-Ci ... 675&sr=1-1

The advantage to this thin polarizer is that it's double threaded which means you should be able to use the Zeiss snap-cap instead of having to use a supplied push-on cap, and yet it's ring is still only 5mm.

I've had the threadless ones before on a different sized thin wide-angle filter and it was a constant annoyance, always catching and pulling off or falling off and it wouldn't fit properly on any other filter thereby necessitating two different caps, one for the polazizer and one for a UV. I was not happy and not looking forward to going through that again.

This filter runs $134.95 on Amazon, but the seller baehrmall on ebay has a BIN price of $89.90 and a 99.9% rating at 9900 items. baehrmall indicates he is clearing these out and has 29 left.

I'll probably do this. If you search on "HOYA 62mm THIN CIRCULAR POLARIZER S-HMC PRO 1", you should be able to pull it up.

Ed

[braeside]

Thanks Ed!

I needed one very quickly for a trip and had to pay the full (UK) whack to get a Hoya 62mm SHMC Pro1 Digital Circular Polarising Filter - I hope it is the right thing. If I had given myself more time I could have saved a fortune and got one from HongKong on Ebay as I normally do.

[edrice]

Thanks Ed!

I needed one very quickly for a trip and had to pay the full (UK) whack to get a Hoya 62mm SHMC Pro1 Digital Circular Polarising Filter - I hope it is the right thing. If I had given myself more time I could have saved a fortune and got one from HongKong on Ebay as I normally do.

I would've done the same thing in that case. I did also go with this one from ebay. With my 5mm UV (with threads) I could just barely see a hint of the filter in corners of the image. That, I can deal with.

I figure that a 5mm thin-ring polarizer, with threads, should produce about the same result. We'll see...

Ed

[David Kilpatrick]

I now have a test up on the blog pages (photoclubalpha.com is now constructed using blogging software, which means I can add articles whenever I feel like).

http://photoclubalpha.com/?p=13

The original Minolta 62mm circular polariser works perfectly, and in fact it takes a pretty thick filter to cause problems.

David

[braeside]

I measured the thickness of the 62mm filters I tried -

4mm - fine
5mm - just about OK but visible
8mm - obvious problems

Oh - and thanks for the test page David.

[edrice]

I now have a test up on the blog pages (photoclubalpha.com is now constructed using blogging software, which means I can add articles whenever I feel like).

http://photoclubalpha.com/?p=13

The original Minolta 62mm circular polariser works perfectly, and in fact it takes a pretty thick filter to cause problems.

David

Great page. All I can say is, dratted starlings!

Ed

[edrice]

I measured the thickness of the 62mm filters I tried -

4mm - fine
5mm - just about OK but visible
8mm - obvious problems

Oh - and thanks for the test page David.

This is the exact same result I got.

Ed

[David Kilpatrick]

I've amended the page following a phone call from a forum member (thanks, Dale) and added photos of the Minolta wide-angle polarizer and a link to B+W's catalogue which includes a similar product. In the process I realised that you could not use many original Minolta w/a lenses with thicker filters - Minolta's own filters, even the plain one, are roughly 2/3rds the thickness of standard Hoya mounts and also had/have thinner optical glass. They made special wide-angle polarizers (and no other choice) to suit the lenses I now list in the article.

What is disappointing is that a 67mm front thread would probably have allowed a slimline, rather than w/a, pol to be usable. Maybe they were very keen to stick to existing thread standards for the Alpha system - currently 49mm, 55mm, 62mm, 72mm and 77mm.

David

[braeside]

Thanks David.

I'll have to live with the slimline Hoya Pro1 Digital C-POL (which should arrive tomorrow). I realise it will clip very slightly at 16mm, but as I generally don't use a polariser on extremely wide angle shots because of the variation in sky darkening, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Those Minolta designs look superb.

[edrice]

I received the Hoya Pro 1 polarizer and, as expected, there was a slight amount of clipping but this won't be a problem.

I'm just glad to have the front threads for the Sony lens cap. Trying the remove and replace the hood with a push-on cap is a chore.

I may see if I can find a similarly styled generic 62mm lens cap for daily use. Over the years, I've had several lens caps go bounding off cliffs never to be seen again and I detest stringed lens-cap pendulums swaying to and fro.

The colors do look quite neutral with the polarizer, so all-in-all, this is a happy solution.

Ed