Panasonic 14-42mm ii with a hood and a polarizer?

Hi,

A question to owners of the P 14-42 ii . I'm interested in buying this lens for general outdoor shooting and I would like to use it with a hood and a polarizing filter attached at the same time. This lens has a relatively deep bayonet hood, see here, so I'm trying to understand if it would be convenient to rotate and fine tune the polarizing filter when the hood is attached.

I'm also trying to figure out if the hood would fit when the lens is used with a 52mm filter attached to a 46->52mm step-up ring (the lens filter thread is 46mm), and whether it would be convenient to play with the filter in that case.

Thank you.

I've never fitted a filter to my 14-42mm MK2, but judging by how many times I've fumbled the lens cap while trying to put it on with the hood fitted, I don't think you're going to have much luck adjusting the filter without removing the hood.

The step-up configuration you mention might make it do-able using thumb and forefinger, but it's still going to be somewhat fiddly.

Convenient? No. Possible? Yes. I use hoya fusion cpl wil that lens and a lens hood. It's a bit if a hassle and annoying, but doable. Will depend on your hands, though. Sausage fingers would make it rather hard to pull off.

Depending on your level of handiness - and your willingness to experiment, I would consider taking the hood and cutting a small slot in the bottom center of the hood to allow you to rotate the polarizer.  Might take a bit of engineering but not too much.  A spare hood and a dremel tool would do the trick.

I have had hoods that had this "hatch" in them in the past - I just can't think of who, although Pentax comes to mind with some of their larger hoods.

greenjp wrote:

I have a 52mm, 3 position collapsible rubber hood with a polarizer on the front that I use with all my lenses via step up rings - a Panasonic 20 1.7, Olympus 45 1.8, Panasonic 45-150, and the 14-42 v2 same as yours. I find this works pretty well but it does render the other hoods redundant. I still use them when I don't want the polarizer. Here it is on the 20mm.

If I remember tonight I'll try putting the polarizer on the step up rig and mount to the 14-42 with the bayonet hood attached and see if I can answer your question more directly.

The issue with the polarizer (or any other filter) is that you want to keep it close to the lens, so Jeff is definitely on the right track here with a 3rd party hood that can attach to the front of the filter!

Note that some polarizers (including a really good one that I use) don't have threads on the front, so be very careful when you are looking for one. (This is bad for two reasons. The first is that you can't put a hood on the front like we're talking about here. The other reason is that you can't put a reversing ring on and use a second polarizer as a 10x ND filter!!!)

Lastly, go through all of your lenses and figure out what size filter will work best for your lenses. I ended up with 58mm and step up rings as necessary to get there. The reason is that you generally want 1 really good filter, not 10 cheap filters of various sizes. A good polarizer runs about $200 or more, so getting the right size the first time is important.

Astrotripper wrote:

Convenient? No. Possible? Yes. I use hoya fusion cpl wil that lens and a lens hood. It's a bit if a hassle and annoying, but doable. Will depend on your hands, though. Sausage fingers would make it rather hard to pull off.

The Hoya Fusion antistatic filter is a fantastic performer especially given it reasonable price point. As a victim of the large sausage fingers curse I agree it is a bit of a footer 

greenjp wrote:

I have a 52mm, 3 position collapsible rubber hood with a polarizer on the front that I use with all my lenses via step up rings - a Panasonic 20 1.7, Olympus 45 1.8, Panasonic 45-150, and the 14-42 v2 same as yours. I find this works pretty well but it does render the other hoods redundant. I still use them when I don't want the polarizer. Here it is on the 20mm.

Thanks for the suggestion. Actually I have the same hood, but for a 46mm filter thread, and I'm using it with the 20mm and 45mm too. I still don't have the P 14-42 ii. Yeah, it's a doable configuration. I remember using it with a CPL attached to the lens, and the hood on top of that. So the hood rotates when the filter rotates. I was curious about the OEM Panasonic hood since it looks more effective (the petal design) and more robust

If I remember tonight I'll try putting the polarizer on the step up rig and mount to the 14-42 with the bayonet hood attached and see if I can answer your question more directly.

Thanks, I'll appreciate that.

jeff

cameron2 wrote:

greenjp wrote:

I have a 52mm, 3 position collapsible rubber hood with a polarizer on the front that I use with all my lenses via step up rings - a Panasonic 20 1.7, Olympus 45 1.8, Panasonic 45-150, and the 14-42 v2 same as yours. I find this works pretty well but it does render the other hoods redundant. I still use them when I don't want the polarizer. Here it is on the 20mm.

If I remember tonight I'll try putting the polarizer on the step up rig and mount to the 14-42 with the bayonet hood attached and see if I can answer your question more directly.

The issue with the polarizer (or any other filter) is that you want to keep it close to the lens, so Jeff is definitely on the right track here with a 3rd party hood that can attach to the front of the filter!

Note that some polarizers (including a really good one that I use) don't have threads on the front, so be very careful when you are looking for one. (This is bad for two reasons. The first is that you can't put a hood on the front like we're talking about here. The other reason is that you can't put a reversing ring on and use a second polarizer as a 10x ND filter!!!)

Lastly, go through all of your lenses and figure out what size filter will work best for your lenses. I ended up with 58mm and step up rings as necessary to get there. The reason is that you generally want 1 really good filter, not 10 cheap filters of various sizes. A good polarizer runs about $200 or more, so getting the right size the first time is important.

Thanks for the suggestions. Which filter do you have in mind that costs 200$? I was thinking of getting this one, which costs 129$ for the 46mm/52mm version. It seems to be double threaded but I need to verify that. The Hoya Fusion that ended 1st place in the last LensTip comparison is about half the price and I consider it as well.

All my lenses are in the range of 37-52mm, so I was thinking of sticking to 52mm. It looks like using a step-up to 52mm, a filter or two, and then a 3-state hood will be the easiest configuration that covers all my lenses. I hope it won't vignette.

Astrotripper wrote:

Convenient? No. Possible? Yes. I use hoya fusion cpl wil that lens and a lens hood. It's a bit if a hassle and annoying, but doable. Will depend on your hands, though. Sausage fingers would make it rather hard to pull off.

Thanks for the inputs.

Anthony Alongi wrote:

Depending on your level of handiness - and your willingness to experiment, I would consider taking the hood and cutting a small slot in the bottom center of the hood to allow you to rotate the polarizer. Might take a bit of engineering but not too much. A spare hood and a dremel tool would do the trick.

I have had hoods that had this "hatch" in them in the past - I just can't think of who, although Pentax comes to mind with some of their larger hoods.

Thanks. Sounds like a cool idea. If I can get a spare hood I'll give it a try. I just noticed that JJC make some after market hoods with a sliding window as you describe (example). They don't seem to produce something like that for Panasonic, but I need to search more.

Terminal Boy wrote:

I've never fitted a filter to my 14-42mm MK2, but judging by how many times I've fumbled the lens cap while trying to put it on with the hood fitted, I don't think you're going to have much luck adjusting the filter without removing the hood.

The step-up configuration you mention might make it do-able using thumb and forefinger, but it's still going to be somewhat fiddly.

Thanks for the information.

assaft wrote:

Thanks for the suggestions. Which filter do you have in mind that costs 200$? I was thinking of getting this one, which costs 129$ for the 46mm/52mm version. It seems to be double threaded but I need to verify that. The Hoya Fusion that ended 1st place in the last LensTip comparison is about half the price and I consider it as well.

58mm - I have the top-of-the-line polarizers from both Heliopan and B+W (but unfortunately only one takes filters on the front ...)

All my lenses are in the range of 37-52mm, so I was thinking of sticking to 52mm. It looks like using a step-up to 52mm, a filter or two, and then a 3-state hood will be the easiest configuration that covers all my lenses. I hope it won't vignette.

You'll get vignetting at the wider extremes, but just pretend you did it on purpose using Instagram

Alright I put the 14-42 on my GX7 and tried putting on both the bayonet petal hood and the 46-52mm step up ring - can't do it. Doesn't work either way - hood or step up ring first. So that's out, at least with my particular items. I did put the step up ring and rubber hood on:

In the fully collapsed (first picture) and halfway out (second) positions there is no vignetting. In the fully extended position (third) it vignettes to about 20mm, after that it's clear.

jeff

assaft wrote:

Hi,

A question to owners of the P 14-42 ii . I'm interested in buying this lens for general outdoor shooting and I would like to use it with a hood and a polarizing filter attached at the same time. This lens has a relatively deep bayonet hood, see here, so I'm trying to understand if it would be convenient to rotate and fine tune the polarizing filter when the hood is attached.

I'm also trying to figure out if the hood would fit when the lens is used with a 52mm filter attached to a 46->52mm step-up ring (the lens filter thread is 46mm), and whether it would be convenient to play with the filter in that case.

Thank you.

No.   It may not work on your lens.

Maybe it might work using an ultra slim polarizer without lens hood ,

Lens hood + polarizer may cause vignette at the widest focal length.   You can always try using polarizer without lens hood.   Test by shooting  at widest focal length and smallest aperture to see if you get vignette.  YMMV.

Good luck.  And report back your findings.

Lena

Thanks for all the inputs in this thread. To summarize:

1. OEM hood + 46mm filter - hard to use. a small hunch in the hood can help, as suggested by Anthony Alongi.

2. OEM hood + 46->52 step up ring + 52mm filter - no go, as verified kindly by greenjp.

3. filter + threaded 3-section hood - works but might vignette at wide angles and wide apertures.