FILTERS GLASS: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COATING

The optical coating is very important when it comes to achieving well-contrasted images, in difficult situations (for example, a white iceberg with a dark seabed) or when the use of a lens hood is not possible. 

There are different types of coatings, depending on the manufacturer. My favorites are Fujifilm's EBC, which is applied with electron radiation and makes it stick for life, or Schott's T (developed by Zeiss) that can be found in some European brands.

The Achilles heel of good optics are the filters: many filters lack optical coating or this is of much lower quality than prime optics, especially when it comes to highly specialized filters, either in their purpose, or in their diameter (or both characteristics at the same time). 

85 filter of same brand, on the left with better coating (HMC): difference is hard to believe!

For example, to shoot Kodak Vision 200 and 500 tungsten balanced film in daylight, which I will use for part of the filming of my documentary in Antarctica "Alén da Fin do Mundo" (Beyond the End of the World), one of the lenses I will be doing cinematography, are the Leitz Cinegon 10mm with Iscorama-36 anamorphic, both T-coated.

My Hoya 85 filter to use, with this setup, to shot tungsten film in daylight,  is a few years old now, but I never bothered to replace it because I always used to shoot with daylight film when shooting in Iscorama. But since I'll be shooting a lot of the Iscorama footage this time with the Tunsgten Vision 200 outdoors, I'll need an 85 filter with a good optical multi coating.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!

The problem I have is that because so few of us shoot this way these days, the big filter brands,  except Tiffen,  no longer make the 85 (as for Tiffen, they don´t sell its filters here).

I contacted photographic shops all around European Union to find a quality multi coated 85 filter with a diameter of 72 mm. without success, until my son Daniel found it in Graz, the Austrian city where he studies his postgraduate degree in engineering !!!

The super nice people at Foto Köberl sent me a pair of Hoya 85 filters with HMC coating, which arrived to Spain in just three days. Coincidentally, I have a Hoya 85 filter without being multi-coated: the difference, comparing both, with the light reflected in my office skylight is incredible, and you can see it in the first photograph.

Thank you good people of Foto Köberl!!!