ND filter advice for DA Ltds

I'd appreciate any advice folk have on ND filters for the DA Ltds.

I can feel the landscape bug biting hard now, and at some stage I'll want to set myself up with ND filters and (hopefully) ND grads for the DA 21 (and DA 15, bank balance willing)... but the design of the DA Ltds (size, hoods etc) seems to make adding square filter systems difficult (see the unresolved thread at link).

What do other DA Ltd users do for NDs and particularly ND grads?

Are the B&W circular grads (link) any good?

Any other advice on brands/filters to go for?? I've little previous experience (ie. none!)of using ND filters.

Thanks

I have given my grad filters away, I haven't used them at all on digital and find that all kinds of PP techniques give far better results... and this from a 'photographic purist'.

I bought a one stop and two stop circular ND Grad off these guys!
http://www.hiltonphoto.co.uk/products/bw-graduated-neutral-density-nd-filters.ht...
I can highly recommend them.
Check they have stock though or you'll have to wait for a long while... Like I did...
The square filters don't play too well with the Ltd's due to the small circumference of the Lens, the meat of the Grad part on the filter is usually outside this circumference...

I briefly tried square filters with the Cokin "A" system about ten years ago, but just didn't find I got on with them. They just seemed very clumsy if you're in the habit of moving around with a camera and of course have to be removed before you can refit the lens cap. Putting a socking great square thing on the end of, say, a DA 35mm just ruins the whole point of the lens IMO.

I have every intention of tracking down some top quality ND filters for 49mm thread, as that will fit the DA prime and my old M series primes.

eBay may be your friend, Penatx 49mm NDs pop up quite often

Yep, I've just been looking!

Is there a listing somewhere of what filters Pentax have offered over the years? I've got a 49mm yellow filter for B&W but no idea what else they made.

One of my treasures is a 49mm Pentax CPL mint in box for, I can't remember exactly, but less than a tenner. You just have to keep looking, I had a spell of buying SMC UV and Skylights in every size ever made - see another thread.

Generally and going way back to M42, Pentax made the most popular lenses with one filter size, 49mm.

With the 645 they were 58mm. I might be wrong.

Of course the 110 used a whole different rangs of tiny things. So the old range doesn't coincide with the current range of lens offerings.

Hoya of course make filters and own Pentax

Hoya have always been a major Japanese glass manufacturer ( I'm sure I remember seeing Hoya wine glasses in a Tokyo shop) - maybe they always made the Pentax glass?

I think 49mm, 52mm and 58mm would cover everything I own. I only really use lenses with 49mm and 52mm threads for normal day to day stuff, hence my cheap ND filters being in 52mm although I have CPLs for all three sizes. They're not bad at all considering they were £5 ebay HK cheapo things, but I'm keeping an eye open for genuine Pentax ones to upgrade the collection.

I have a handful of Hoya 49mm filters from my film days, but they're not terribly useful (a star filter, some weird thing which blurs the edges but leaves a central spot alone, and an 85? warm up filter).

645 lens filter sizes vary across 58mm, 67mm, 77mm, 82mm. A couple of the cheapest models were 58mm.

I'm on holiday in Hong Kong at the moment and saw a Hoya eyeglasses display in an Opticians yesterday. That was a first for me, I don't recall seeing any Hoya products when I was growing up here.

Pentax have (or rather had) a medical division, which IIRC included eyeglasses. Perhaps these have now been rebranded as Hoya?

Pentax spectacle lenses in the UK are now licensed to Specsavers if I remember correctly. They aren't made by Pentax they just use the name. There was a tie up between Pentax and Zeiss until recently.

Hoya's main spectacle brand is now Seiko.

This is the history:

http://www.seiko-optical.com/Company_History.24.0.html

ASDA use Hoya spectacle lenses for all but a few specialist prescriptions.

Hoya made lenses (glass) for various manufacturers in the '70s and produced their own range of camera lenses in the early '80s. The glass in them was Hoya's own HMC (Hoya MultiCoated) which was new for budget-priced lenses at the time. The actual camera lenses were built for Hoya by another unspecified manufacturer. IIRC the most commonly held belief at the time was Tokina.

I bought a Cokin filter system including a 49mm adapter. I've found that I don't need to stack filters - CPL + ND is almost always overkill - so use only the 0.9 grad ND, which I hand hold in front of the lens.

If I need a CPL I use s 49mm screw-on filter.

I may still buy a screw-on grad ND for hands free use.

Thanks Digby/Jules/Ken/Dangermouse for your thoughts


Digby...

I'm having difficulty trying to envisage how this works How does the adaptor work (and where did you get it from)? And hand holding the filter - I assume you just press it against the adapter system??? Has it worked OK for you? It seems a faff...

And I assume if you use the screw in ND grads the position of the grad is fixed??