I have ordered and will be using the 55mm as my primary lens for landscapes. I have gleaned from the literature that a thin circular polarizer is necessary because of vignetting. I would, at times, like to use an enhancing filter and or hood. Is any combination of these three items possible? Since the thin polarizer has no front threads how would I mount a hood? The lens barrel does not provide for a bayonnet type mount. If there is a way - what kind of hood is best - round, square, flowered? In order to use an enhancing filter would it be advisable to buy a step-up ring and go to the next larger filter size up from the 77mm? What are my choices? Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

John J. Zombek

-- john j zombek (jzombek@webtv.net), February 05, 2000

Answers

You do not have to use an "official" thin polarizer on the 50mm/f4. I thinbk where the confusion comes from is the two very good German polarizers made by B+W and Heliopan. They are mounted in thicker rings than othe brands, with the Heliopan slightly deeper than B+W's.

I have no vignetting with a Tiffen warm polarizer that I remounted in a Hoya pola ring. The Tiffen's knurled ring increased the outside diameter a tad too much to accept the slip on the Pentax lens hood. I also remounted a Cokin #173 B/Y vari-color polarizer in a Janapese 77mm polarizer ring given to me by Bob Singh (of Singh-Ray).

You would have a problem if you tried to mount an additional 77mm glass filter in front of the polarizer. I can add extra filtration or ND grads with no problem by using a modified 1-slot Cokin P holder.

-- Garrett Adams (gadams@jps.net), February 05, 2000.

Please excuse the above typo's and of course I am referring to the 55mm/f4 Pentax 67 lens.

-- Garrett Adams (gadams@jps.net), February 05, 2000.

The lens hood I use on my 55 mm f 4 is the slip-on collapsible rubber hood that Mamiya makes for their 50 mm RZ lens. The hood is super wide, so I feel it offers more protection from damage than flare, but I haven't yet run into any flare problems with it so maybe it is in fact doing the job! The rubber hood was 5 bucks from a misc. bin at a used camera store As I mentioned it slips on the outside of the lens and hold on with tiny tension bumps, and leaves the threads available for mounting filters. For filtration I use series 9 filters and I guess the step up from 77 mm to series 9 is large enough to avoid vingeting(sp)... hope that was of help.

-- bigbig (bigfilmfoto@aol.com), April 07, 2000.