Avoid circular B+W made in germany filters

Hi,

A couple of years ago I bought on internet a circular graduated ND filter:
B+W 72E FARBVERLAUF GRAU 25%

This filter drove me nuts for a couple of years. I don't use it anymore, in place I use a Sunpak made in Japan and I am happy with it.

What happened was the following:

Personally, with a graduated ND, when looking through the viewfinder, I have a hard time telling where is the dark area of the filter and as a consequence I don't know if it is placed on top where is the sun.

To solve that, after buying a filter I put a mark on the filter ring on top of the darker area of the filter. And before taking a pic I look at the filter screwed on the lens and turn it to place the mark on the side getting the more light.

I was not happy at all with the pics taken with this filter. I was still overexposing the bright area of the landscape and underexposing the somber one.

I was thinking that the filter is not strong enough in absorbing light.

Then I noticed that I didn't placed the mark on the filter at the right place, it seems it wasn't on the darker part of the filter.

So I did a second mark, then another and another and I was thinking there is something with your eyes man, each time you look at the filter you don't see the dark part at the same position.

I am not proud it took me so long to realize that the problem was due to the filter glass turning inside its mount (don't laugh). So each time I was using the filter the dark area had moved away from the mark and as a result I was not positioning the dark area at the right place.

You cannot fix it. On this filter, there is no way to tighten the mount on the filter.

Regards,

Pierre