Filter Reviews

Just to warn potencial buyers, this item's description is in error! According to Cokin, the equivalents Cokin/ISO of the Blue series is: 020/80A, 021/80B, 022/80C (holds for both A and P series). Thus, this item should be titled: "... Filter A021 80B (blue)A020" Hope this note is usefull!

Really - this world has come down to --do you own a REGULAR cam-
era - (35mm) or some outlaw kind of thing that everything costs you 10 or 15 times as much? (my pictures are just as good as yours). Now - talk about FILTERS! Would you rather spend $300 for a filter or $15 for a filter that does the SAME THING (and
YOU only use it on an occasional basis!) - COKIN is your answer.
The variety is staggering, the PRICES are nearly "MAX price ab-
out" ---... -& the performance saves you thousands of dollars! I
look at FILTERS, "only ..." - and I laugh seeing ... as an EGO TRIP when the same results can be had for a few bucks. NOW I've got 17 COKIN FILTERS - and I"M READY for ANY PICTURE you DARE TO CUSTOMIZE! Watch out for AMAZON.COM - their prices GOOD. A
FRENCH man "Coquin" put a HAPPY in the "poor man's " ability to
have an ASTOUNDING VARIETY of CREATIVE OPTIONS for OUR kind
of money. According to prices I see -- I've bought the PRICE of
a $2000 car for $175! We use FILTERS as an CREATIVE FUN -- not
spending THOUSANDS for something HOPING the picture will be 50
times better! Buy a COMPLETE set of COKINs that --YOU-- like and
YOU WILL NEVER BE SORRY! And YOU can --switch-- to LARGER LENSES with just an ... ADAPTOR! I use THE SAME COKINs for 52mm as my 62mm lens! Investigate AMAZON and COKIN and SAVE yourself a TON!
I'm 70 and still learning HOW TO SAVE MONEY -for the SAME thing!

This neat gadget allows you to use even MORE filters with your cokin filter system. Just think of it, now you can use a skylight, polarizer, 4 star filter, ND and more all at once! A great item to have in your photobag for those moments when you need more filters, but dont' have the room to put them in your filter holder.

The coupling ring let's you attach a second filter holder allowing you to use more than three filters at once. You can also orientate square filters in different directions. Or move a Center Spot filter father away from the lens for a larger circle. Or other filters that are best used when placed far forward like Pastels , Diffusers and the Pre-shaped Frames to name a few. It is Not for use with wide angle lenses.The Coupling Ring will also attach to the Modular Hood (225)

The Harmony Air Purifier has turned out to be a great little workhorse of a machine! I have dogs and this machine does a great job of removing their dust, hair and dander from the air. The only problem I have is the noise. The Harmony is not loud, but it is noticeable. Filter replacement is easy. Filter costs can add up. The recommended replacement on the Hepa filter was 12-18mos, but I needed to replace after 8 months of hard use. Overall I reccomend it. Good Quality, Great Price.

I bought the Holmes HAP625 a month ago from Amazon and love it. It's easy to move around from room to room. At night I left it on "low" between 2 bedrooms. In the morning, my severe allergies -stuffed nose and itchy eyes disappeared. The air flows upward, so it doesn't hit your face if you are sleeping. It fits nicely with my house decor. I would highly recommend this purifier to anyone with severe allergies. California 3/4/04

this fisheye is sick dope fresh its totaly rad and neat.

for the pictur on the camra does it look like a good fish eye pic like a skateboard video er somthin like that?

This is a medium quality lens in the Minolta line. It's user ratings are generally 3 out of 5 stars for clarity. I would consider it the lower end of the better range in the Minolta line. I've shot with it and been pleased. If you are buying a minolta camera for it's lens quality, this is the only lens I would buy from Amazon. If you are buying minolta because it's a value compared to other SLR's and just want something better than a point and shoot, you probably want one of the lower end lenses offered on Amazon.

Im sorry I would have to disagree with the last comments. I am a semi-professional photographer and unless you want to spend big on 2.8 lenses, this is one of the sharpest lenses around bar none!

Typical Nikon quality. Clear, sharp, easy to use. Great basic lens that gathers a lot of light. I always have it in my camera bag.

I have had my 50mm Nikon AF 1.4 lens for 20 years. It worked on my Nikon N-4004 until I bought a Coolpix 5700, it slept for two years, and it woke up when I got my D-100 digital SLR six months ago. If you are a candid and available light photographer, and you can live with a very fast 75mm field of view, you will get a lot of shots that others will miss. The color rendition and sharpness of focus are perfect for digital use. With a good editing program you will work miracles. Zoom lenses are great, but the tried and true, fixed and fast 50 mm f-1.4 will outlast them all!

This lens came with a tripod mount and a couple of adapters, one of which fits my Olympus D-490 zoom. The adapters seem to work well but being plactic 'clip-ons' they're not very robust. The IPIX software doesn't work for the D-490 hi-res images but you can downsize the pix to make them 'fit'. Although more complex, Helmut Dersch's Panarama Tools are better but you will need to crop the images first.

This lens kit includes the fisheye lens, a couple of adaptors to Olympus point and shoot digital cameras (I use a D-460Z), and a tripod mount that positions the lens directly over the forward nodal point to eliminate parallax for panorama stitching. It works very well, especially considering the prices of standard wide angle lenses at ten times this price.

I recommend stitching with MGI PhotoVista (http://www.mgisoft.com) and take your photos with minimal or no compression such as TIFF mode (4 megs) and compress later for Web viewing top quality panoramas. Crop out the black "tunnel" with PhotoShop if you can afford it.

For panoramas it is critcal to get your nodal point directly over the center of the tripod to avoid parallax. Be sure your tripod head has the attachment screw directly centered. Many tripods don't do this and the offset will kill your stitching efforts. For more info see http://www.panoguide.com.

I agree very much with Mr. Lassiter's comments. I would just like to add a little info. about using this lens with the Olympus C-2100UZ, because I found the scant information that is available a little ambiguous.
Yes, you can use it with a C-2100UZ. You dont need a CLA-1 adapter, but you do need to shell out for a 49-55mm step-up ring as the one supplied is 43-55mm.
Hope this helps.

I didn't "do the homework" on this lens before buying it, and even though it 'only' drops the focal length by .8, I'm kind of glad I went ahead and tried it versus some of the other alternatives.

In my research after-the-fact, I've seen many say that it's difficult to significantly shorten the focal length without accepting image quality that ranges from poor to just plain awful.

The good news:

Image quality to MY untrained eye seems identical to that provided by that of the camera's onboard lens alone.

The bad news:

Everyone familiar with the lens noted the obvious issues of viewfinder and flash blockage. There's no way to mount anything this big without dealing with those issues.

Other observations:

It's a lens that's aesthetically pleasing to handle and the user certainly gets a sense of the quality of workmanship that went into the lens.

Value observations:

It's not the kind of lens you'd recommend as one of the first purchases on a tight budget. I had at first thought of returning it because of the modest (35->28) improvement offered, but as I evaluated the results and read about other lenses, I decided that a near flawless .8 was probably worth more than shorter focal lengths with obvious problems.

The lens also came with the Oly 43-55mm step up ring, which I needed to buy anyway for the B-300 I'm also getting from B&H, currently on back order.

The Net: I'm keeping the lens. If your camera has an even longer "shortest focal length" then you'll likely appreciate the lens and use it more often.

And a final curiosity:

Indoors, mounted on tripod with a fixed aiming point, the 3040Z would routinely fire the flash with the built in lens, and would NOT use the flash with the wide-angle mounted.

This came as a surprise, since I'd read that adding lenses usually results in LOSS of light to the camera. If anything I might have guessed the opposite result flash wise, even though the lens is advertised as working 'without reducing aperture'.

I think this is a wonderful filter and good for beginners and or advanced poeple. This is something you need to get started.

This lens is essential to getting good underwater pictures with either of the new Digital cameras that Reefmaster offers. I took mine to the Cayman Islands and after only a few shots, decided to leave the lens on for almost all my underwater shots! The improvement was immediately "clear". Get one!

Sigma 50-500mm F4-6.3 EX RF HSM is a new addition to Sigma family of EX grade lenses. EX stands for "excellence" and is the high end of the manufacturing line. It means that the build quality of this lens is very good. You are not likely to end up with front glass falling out as it happens on some consumer-grade products. The quality of optics is rated "good" in its category of the wide-range zooms by www.photozone.de. However, this "good" is bordering with "average", so don't expect crisp sharpness of the prime lenses especially at wide open aperture at 500mm. The lens is heavy and very big. People will definitely notice it when you carry it around. Hood, case and the tripod collar should come with the lens, which is a plus. Filters, though, may be quite expensive. The lens has no image stabilizer which make a tripod or a monopod necessary when you shoot for slide film. However, for digital or for 4x6 prints it may be okay. The big plus is that you don't have to change lenses when a different focal length is needed. Another big plus is its price. Nobody can beat Sigma in that. I recommend this lens for those who cannot afford long focal primes or for those who prefer the convenience of all-in-one.

This is was my first Sigma EX HSM lens. The 50-500mm was just too good to pass up for the price. While I've had other Sigma lens I purchased them mostly for the price. The quality was OK/acceptable. But these EX HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor) lens are the finest quality lens I've ever put my hands on! They are mostly metal vs mostly plastic. They are smooth as silk and extremely FAST focus. They seem not to seach back and forth as much for the focal point--they lock on almost immediately. This lens makes brilliant true color shots and works great with my Nikon D100. With the digital camera 1.4x factor this lens is like having a 70-700 on a film camera. The only note is the lens is HEAVY like as in 4lbs! You really can't imagine it until you mount it on the camera and shoot--you'll need a mono/tripod for using the 500mm. The lens comes with a beautiful case and a high-tech lens shade. You'll never buy anything but a Sigma HSM lens again. Too bad they don't make the HSM for all their models.