Ultra wide angle lenses are great, and if you’re a landscape shooter then you probably own at least one or two of them, but many have a bit of a problem in the form of built in lens hoods that prevent you from attaching filters.
While you may not want to use a polarising filter on a lens with a field of view so wide it can almost see behind itself, ND filters are often desired to produce long exposures giving landscapes a softer and more ethereal quality, or perhaps you simply want to slow down the shutter for video.
So what do you do when you want to use one on a lens that doesn’t actually give you a way to attach one? You make your own attachment, of course, and this video from Cheesy Cam is going to show you how.
Using nothing more than a rolled up piece of thin card and some gaffer tape, we have successfully mounted a variable ND filter over the end of our lens.
After taping the card into a tube that fits snugly around the lens, cutting some slits allow you to expand this out to fit around the edge of your filter. With the “arms” cut to length to fit inside the filter, it’s time to start taping things down.
With everything taped up, it doesn’t look that out of place unless you get up real close to inspect it, and isn’t going to draw any extra attention when using it out in the field.
While it may have been better to produce the tube from black card to prevent any internal reflections, most of it is hidden by the built in lens shade itself, and the rest can easily be blacked out with a little more tape or a Sharpie.
So, if you’re in a pinch, and don’t have one of the often expensive filter holders specifically designed for your wide angle lens, this is a great and inexpensive way to get what you need quickly.
[via No Film School]
