Just talked to Heliopan about the variable ND filters - good news.

Postmaster

Postmaster

Dark Side of the Camera
Just talked to the product manager of Heliopan variable ND filters- good news: they have the variable ND with front threads now - in the moment they started to pump them out, but it may take a while till it hits your local shops.

Frank
 
Do you have a link? Is this a separate model from the others or are they all shipped with front-filters now?

The missing front filter thread was my one complaint with this item.

I was just about to pre-order one but now I need to make sure its the right model.
 
They have two different models.

"Slim" (without thread) and the threaded model, which has a bit thicker frame.

I don´t have a link, since this information came out of the horses mouth (i.e. the Heliopan product manager) this morning.
They should pop up in the shops soon. Probably the German shops like fotobrenner.de get it first, since they are around the corner.

So if you pr-order, stay away from the "Slim" version.


Frank
 
jambredz said:
Does the heliopan experience colour shift?
Click to expand...

No. That's what differentiates it from everything else.

In other news, vendors don't seem to know about this front-filtered version apparently coming out. Or at the very least, they won't admit to it.

A new (small as ever) batch of Heliopan Vari-NDs is getting shipped to vendors right now for sale in the coming week.

The prospect of a front-filtered version has kept me from buying although I'm not even sure which version I actually want anymore. Mostly I just don't like the idea of accidentally planting a big ol' thumbprint on the front of a $450 filter, but at the same time I don't much like the idea of adding an additional glass element to the Heliopan...argh
 
Personally I couldn't care less about the front filtered version. Why would anyone want to stack more glass in front? It can only cut down and possibly distort the light that comes in. You only add glass in front of the lens if you absolutely need to - and a ND filter is one such situation... but to then voluntarily add more glass?? As to thumbprints - you always have the choice of being careful... but once you put glass in front, you no longer have a choice - you are taking the penalty of extra glass 100%... with thumbprints, at least you have a chance to avoid it. But to each his own, of course, different strokes for different folks, and I respect that.
 
At least for outdoors daylight shooting I like a UV filter too. Sky 1A or similar. Helps DR by preventing premature clipping in the blue channel and also improves color contrast. Yes you degrade a bit when you add more layers of glass, but sometimes the tradeoff is worth it.

+1 on the sun shade.
 
Personally I prefer those rubber sunshades, that fold back in three steps, cause it´s very versatile - you just need one and leave it attached to the ND all the time.
Because it folds back, you can adopt it to wider lenses to prevent vignetting in a second.

They are plenty on ebay in any diameter and size for a few bucks. I don´t recommend no special brand, since they come all from the same Chinese factory anyway.

Frank
 
Razz16mm said:
At least for outdoors daylight shooting I like a UV filter too. Sky 1A or similar. Helps DR by preventing premature clipping in the blue channel and also improves color contrast. Yes you degrade a bit when you add more layers of glass, but sometimes the tradeoff is worth it.

+1 on the sun shade.
Click to expand...

Heliopan makes also a nice UV/Infrared combined cutof filter

...just saying.
 
Just got this back from a Heliopan dealer after questioning if they'd heard of the new filters with front threads:

No, just a false rumor.No Variable ND filters with front threads.
They are not to be used in conjunction with other filters.

They are looking into slip over caps but that is it.

 
Dealer - Schmealer,

I got this information straight from the horses mouth,
after talking about half an hour with the product manager here in Germany.

Frank
 
what's the big deal having filter threads on the front? Cant you put the heliopan on last? Especially since you'll be rotating it to change exposure.
 
If you can put a sunshade in front of the filter, you can rotate it by grabbing the sunshade, instead of reaching deep into the shade.

Frank
 
Any news on the front threaded heliopans? Or any more info or workarounds on getting a shade onto the non-threaded versions?
 
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