I was looking through a thrift store I hadn’t traditionally had a lot of luck in. But you never know in the collecting scheme of things what might turn up. I looked at a couple of vaguely interesting things I had looked at a month earlier, but then noticed this LowePro Filter pocket. It didn’t have a price on the outside. So I picked it up and unfastened the (Velcro®) strap to unfold the three strips of filter pockets. There were only two pockets per strip but all but one one had something in it. I checked one of the filters and it was labelled B+W. I have a great respect for B+W filters from way back. The price tag was also visible and it was $4.99.
I was thrilled and immediately carried the Filter pocket to the cashier. She was an older lady and she was surprised at what I had found and the pricing. But to give her a lot of credit she not only sold it to me, she allowed my Senior’s discount so I only paid $4.49 for it.
Let’s see what I got (clockwise starting top left)—
B+W F-Pro 58 mm circular polarizer (has gold lettering)
Generic 67 mm circular polarizer
Tiffen 67 mm 812 filter
B+W 67 mm 67E WZ 2 (plain white lettering)
(not shown) a 58 to 67 mm step-up ring
I have had a Soligor 49 mm polarizer (I suspect linear, not circular) in a case lying on my desk for several months that I could fit into the spare pouch in the case.
In case you wonder about the Tiffen 812 filter, it is a warming filter for use outside in full shade or cloudy days to warm the scene by 200 degrees K. It is commonly used for portrait work to make skin tones look less cold (or blue).
The B+W 67E WZ 2 has very fine concentric ridges radiating from the center. By using different apertures you can adjust the degree of sharpness of your lens to blend the face’s wrinkles. It is beginning to look as if the pouch has the filter kit for a wedding or portrait photographer.
Both the warming and the anti-wrinkle filter don’t have filter factors. They have no effect on the exposure. The polarizers have a filter factor that varies a bit, depending on manufacturer and a bit by how they are adjusted—they are rotated in their mounts to kill reflections. Behind-the-lens light metering will adjust the exposure for them, but you will be losing a little more than 1½ stops.
For real fun you can mount two polarizers on the lens and block most of the light—good for slowing exposure for moving water blurring!
I hate to tattle on myself, but I have dropped two of the filters on the concrete floor while playing with the Filter pocket. It works fine holding the filters unless you accidentally tilt a filter pocket strip backwards. Since the backing is floppy material and the pockets are open at the top, the filters just slide out and toboggan across the remaining pouches to the floor.
Following blog on shooting with these filters—
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