Rodenstock 90 f6.8 can you stack filters??

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I recently returned to LF 4X5 photography and after buying a Rodenstock 90mm f6.8, I need some advice on filters. My preference is to shoot B&W with usually a red 25 filter and a polarizer. Will I experience problems by stacking two filters on this lens? Someone mentioned in another posting that filters for WA lenses should be as large as possible. The filter on my Grandagon is 67mm and I have been told to adapt to 86mm. Does this make any sense? I am primarily concerned with vinetting, and I mainly shoot landscapes and some architecture from a distance. Many thanks for your help in this matter. William

-- William McKelvey (mokelv99@aol.com), February 23, 2002

Answers

Can't answer the question about the Rodenstock lens but I can comment on standardizing filter sizes. After 30+ years of shooting 35mm, 6x6, 6x7 and now large format, I have a dizzing array of lens thread sizes from 35.5mm to 95mm. Since starting with large format I took a good look at the lenses that I had, and those that I might buy in the future, and standardized on 58mm and 86mm filters. And I also bought the necessary step-up rings to make them work on all of the lenses. I standardized on the 58mm because it's the smallest size to fit the available compact (slow and light) lenses from 90mm to 450mm, and it's the size at which prices remain low before taking off at 62mm and above (and who wants to adapt an 86mm filter to a 35.5mm thread if they don't have to?). The 86mm was chosen because the center filters that I use have that as their outside thread size, and the not-so-wide wideangle lenses that have 72mm and 77mm threads can be stepped-up to allow use of stacked filters if needed, without vignetting. Personally, I would avoid like the plague the overly- specialized "wideangle" filters that are available, because: they do not allow the use of the center filter, they are a big hunk of glass that cannot be adapted to lenses with filter threads any larger than their reduced-diameter male threads, they cost 50% more than same- sized filters with normal threads. Just be aware that some filter makers (HOYA) do not have 86mm multi-coated filters in their catalog. And wait until you see an 86mm B+W or Heliopan Kaesmann Polarizer - they're heavier than half of the lenses that I own. BTW a polarizer on a 90mm may not be as useful as you might think, the effect is usually too uneven (at least IMHO).

-- Wayne DeWitt (wdewitt@snip.net), February 24, 2002.

I don't know about combining a red filter with a polaroid, but I think your best bet is to mount the red filter on the rear of the lens and the polaroid on the front. The problem one encounters when mounting two filters on the same side is that light can reflect between the two filters and off the lens, and this can have an adverse affect on the photograph.

I would get a Kodak Wratten for the red filter mounted on the reverse of the lens. They're thin, and will minimize a potential abberation that can occur when mounting a filter on the rear of a W.A. lens.

-- neil poulsen (neil.fg@att.net), February 24, 2002.


A 90mm is equal to a 25mm lens in 35mm,I wouldnt think too many filters can be stacked on a 25mm lens w/o vignetting.You could try the thin mounts filts?

-- edsel adams (mrchippy628@aol.com), February 24, 2002.

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