Nikkor Filters vs Hoya for Nikon SLRs

68degrees

Well-known
Local time
9:18 AM
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
882
Location
USA
Some of my AI lenses of skylight filters on them. They say Hoya. Can anyone tell me about Hoya and how do they compare to the Nikkor skylight filters and Nikkor in general?
 
Hoya is a large specialty glass company. They make precision optics and specialty glasses. For instance they supplied at one time the neodymium doped glass use to build Shiva, a huge laser project of the Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California intended to study of inertial confinement fusion.
Would I trust their optical abilities vs Nikon? Both are capable to produce outstanding filters and optics. Hoya has the additional ability to produce the glasses needed to fabricate filters and lenses. They sell their specialty glasses to many Japanese fabricators, that could include Nikon.
 
Hoya HMC glass is good but in my opinion, Hoya filter rings are aweful. Same with Tiffen rings. Both are made out of aluminum and bind up easily against brass or aluminum lens barrels. Hoya also made average filters which aren't optically up to snuff like the HMC line is because they aren't coated or aren't multicoated on both surfaces. This can increase the likelihood of ghost reflections in the final image but for most purposes the filters you have will be just fine.
Personally, if I use filters, they are Heliopan or B+W. Both are set in brass rings and are superb in performance. The finest filters you can get in my opinion.

Post some photos shot through these filters and with your Nikons. Let your images be the arbiter of your optics questions.

Phil Forrest
 
The Hoya coated Skylight 1B ("Made in Japan") is a very tough filter that is hard to damage and easy to clean. The rings are relatively soft aluminum. I don't recommend HMC unless you are ready to lose a lifetime battle with fingerprints.

Nikon filters have brass rings, are narrower in depth, and have fairly tough coatings (they won't say single or multi, but they say "Nikon Integrated Coating" in the literature). The rings, however, have fairly coarse serrations that will tend to damage plastic equipment if things get loose in your bag. Nikon does not (as far as I recall) make a 1B filter like Hoya does (B+W makes an equivalent called KR3).

The binding thing is really a product of threading something soft and something hard together. The actual metal doesn't matter, since what is contacting on both sides is an anodized finish. Modern Nikkor lenses all have plastic filter rings, so binding is rarely if ever an issue.

Dante
 
Back
Top Bottom