I’m not going to pretend I don’t know how atypical my obsession with filter sizes is – it’s a flatly weird obsession to have, and I know that. I’ve touched upon it in a couple of places, but I’ve never really explained why it bothers me so much. There’s no one dramatic trauma that caused it, instead it was the result of a number of contributing irritations.
To explain, let me go back to my first days (excluding my childhood with a 126 Instamatic) and look at some of the factors. I started with a digital SLR and ‘analogue’ lenses. Because I was using digital, and not much of an artist, I bought the cheapest skylights I could find and left them on forever. When I started with film, I had similar intentions. However, practical problems came in to play. My first two lenses were the 40mm on a Trip 35, and a Leica 35mm Elmar. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a UV filter for either of these – the Trip 35 used a 43.5mm filter ring only made by Olympus during the original run of the camera. Meanwhile the Leica lens takes two takes of filter. It was originally intended to use a push-on filter, the A36. Unfortunately this covers the aperture lever, so most people use the inner 19mm filter thread. As it turns out, finding a filter of either size is nearly impossible.
About this time I picked up my ruined Thorium Summicron a lens that used Leica’s longtime standard of 39mm. This, at last – was easy. Given that the damaged front element made the lens more prone to flaring, I invested in a higher-quality B+W filter. At this point I still wasn’t too fussed about filter sizes; after all, as long as I could get a UV filter for it, why would it matter? Things changed when I started experimenting more with color film. At the rate I was shooting, I’d never have been able to sustain the costs of standard C-41 or E-6 film, so I started exploring alternatives, and soon had a can of Fujifilm’s Eterna Vivid 500T to start playing with. To date, I still haven’t shot enough of that film to be worth buying the correct development kit, which is probably a mistake on my part. In any case; since 3000K light is increasingly falling out of use in our world of energy-saving LED bulbs, and since I tend more towards working outdoors – it was necessary to buy 85-series color correction filters for my lenses. This is where things started to become really problematic. I managed to get a 19mm 85A for the Elmar, and a nice Leica 39mm for my Summicron. However, I was now considering looking at other lenses that were faster, longer, and wider. Additionally, I was considering using color filters to improve my black and white photography. Altogether, the cost of buying high-end Hoya and B+W multicoated filters for 19mm, 39mm, 46mm, 49mm, 52mm and more, for my differing lens choices was upsetting; At that rate, I’d be spending almost as much on filters as on lenses.
That was the point at which I decided that it was necessary to change my plans. By this time I had five lenses: Two Leica 50mm lenses, both using 39mm filters. A Soviet 35mm lens that used an odd 40.5mm thread – a lens which was bought solely as a temporary replacement for the Leica 35mm and it’s 19mm thread – and a Voigtländer 15mm F4.5 with a 52mm thread – a nice standard that was also used on my favorite Nikon F lens, now in use on my grandfathers’ old film SLR.
Picking the ‘threads’ I would standardize on ended up being quite simple. I already had several lenses in two filters (39mm and 52mm), and these were also well represented among the small Leica and fast Voigtländer lenses which I was considering. It did cull a few options from my list, preventing me from considering the Leica Summarit and Voigtländer Nokton 1.4 lenses, as well as the 75mm Summilux and Summicron lenses. It did however allow the 35/2.5 Skopar and 35/3.5 and 35/2.8 Summaron lenses that I was seriously considering, and the 75/1.8 Heliar that ended up becoming one of my two ‘daily shooter’ lenses. My preference in camera gear is towards small and lightweight. For this reason, choosing 39mm and 52mm allowed me to build a kit of relatively compact lenses – of the kit I use, only the 75mm 1.8 Heliar is considered ‘large’ for its focal length, and then only by comparison to the Summarit and older Heliar 2.5 lenses. The popular 75mm Summilux and Noctilux make my Heliar look tiny!
There were some odd side-effects of this choice. It prevented me from pulling the trigger on a goggled 135mm F2.8 lens; which I later learned was widely considered to be soft and unreliable – a lucky save! Interestingly, while all my 39mm filters are either B+W or Leitz, I’ve ended up with a fairly consistent Hoya kit in 52mm – though as I’m starting to select color filters for monochrome work, I’m finding that certain filters like Wratten 22 are almost impossible to find for 52mm and I’m looking at using Heliopan filters. This is because historically, 52mm-thread lenses were bulky SLR lenses, on which most photographers in the 70’s and 80’s used square drop-in filters. I even have a set of these myself. Voigtländer’s modern 15/4.5 II, 35/1.2 II, 50/1.2 and 75/1.8 lenses are the only 52mm rangefinder lenses that have ever existed, as far as I know.
As for my filter choices themselves, they have been a little more slapdash than my lens choices. As it stands, I currently have the following filters for at least one of my two formats:
- UV/Skylight filter (Wratten 1A). These are my day-to-day for color and low-light monochrome work. I have a handful of them, because they’re also used as ‘storage’ filters on lenses that aren’t in use.
- Deep Orange-Red (Wratten 22, B+W 041). This is my bright-light monochrome filter, mostly used to retain detail in the sky when I’m shooting outdoors, and to highlight skin tones when I’m shooting in the flat, overcast days that I prefer to work on. At the moment, I only have one in 39mm and I’m hunting for a good 52mm version.
- Daylight-Tungsten (Wratten 85A). I have these in 19mm, 39mm and 52mm. They allow me to shoot daylight (~5500K) scenes on Tungsten-balanced (~3400K) color film, such as Eterna Vivid 500T, or Vision3 500T and 200T.
- Tungsten-Daylight (Wratten 80A). This one is a recent purchase for my 52mm kit. It’s the inverse of the 85A, allowing me to shoot indoor scenes with tungsten lighting on normal daylight-balanced color film. It’s not a filter I expect to use often since most fast color film I use is already tungsten balanced, but I can see opportunities for it.
- Daylight Warming Filter (Wratten 81A). You can think of this filter as a much paler 85A. It adds a gentle orange tone to scenes, offsetting some of the harshness of flash, and some of the blueness of daylight – particularly on overcast days. It’s very handy for shooting standard slide or color negative film outdoors, and it tends to live on my 135mm lens which is mostly used for portraiture.
It’s easy to see that my kit isn’t the most comprehensive (or to put it another way – bloated) out there, but with four uncommon filters, plus a UV for each lens – and my requirement for high quality multicoated filters, it’s also a kit that would get expensive quickly if I had to buy it again for filter thread after filter thread after filter thread. It would also take up a significant amount of space as each stack of filters in cases takes up about the same room as my chunky 75mm lens. Finally, it has already proven difficult to find some of the more obscure filters in the common sizes I’m looking for – getting the 81A and 80A filters was more luck than judgement on my part and I’ve mentioned the difficulty I’m having finding a 52mm 22 filter.
That hopefully explains why I have such an obsession with filter threads of lenses – cost, space and availability all play their part in making it difficult for me to justify adding additional filter thread lenses. That said, starting from scratch would allow me to choose different sets – 46mm would allow me the Summilux ASPH lenses, 75mm Summarit lens and the (optically identical) later version of my 135mm Elmar lens, while 43mm would give me the Nokton 3/51.4, a direct copy of Leica’s pre-aspherical Summilux and the Nikon 135/3.5 Q.C. 67mm filters would give me the 16-18-21mm Leica Tri-Elmar and 75mm Noctilux. All of these options are much bigger than the selection I’ve made, so for my needs? I’m happy with my choice.
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