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• Heliopan
• Tiffen
• Hoya
• Bower
• Kenko
  

Heliopan

Heliopan: Heliopans are the very best filters available. Anodized precision brass rings help eliminate binding and cross threading. Schott glass.(Zeiss)  The Heliopan filter has one more thread than the B+W making them less prone to unscrew by themselves. The Heliopan filter is also slightly thinner than the B+W when mounted on a lens. The majority of Heliopan filters are hard coated on both sides. Heliopan also makes multi coated filters that feature 14 layers of multi coating.   Made in Germany

Tiffen

Tiffen: Tiffen standard  filters are not coated. Tiffen did make a TMC filter "Tiffen Multi Coated." This filter has been discontinued. It was very easily scratched. A new improved version was introduced in 1998, available only in UV and Skylight filters  with a much more scratch resistant coating.  Tiffen uses a glass laminate except on the Didymium Enhancing filters which are made of solid glass. Tiffen filters are  aluminum ring filters. The glass is held in position with a screw in ring similar to some front lens elements 

I like the Tiffen filters when shooting under less than ideal circumstances (beach, rain dust)  The filters are tough and very hard to scratch opposed to a coated filter. Tiffen makes a lot of filters that other manufacturers do not.

Tiffen filters are made in the U.S. and Japan.

Hoya   

Hoya Standard
Hoya Green Series.
Hoya HMC
Hoya Super HMC
Ultra Thins

Hoya Filters are in aluminum anodized rings.  Glass is held in place by a snap ring.
Made in Japan and the Philippines.

Hoya Green Series.

Metal Ring Made in the Philippines.
Hoya's Lowest costing  filter.
Only available in UV, Sky and Circular Polarizer all are uncoated.

Hoya Standard Filters

Both sides of filter are mono coated. Special effect filters such as Star are
not coated.. See chart

HMC
Hoya Multi Coated.

HMC filters are multi coated.  Average light transmission is over 97%
The multi coating helps reduce flare and ghosting.  More info

Super HMC.

12 Layers of Super Multi Coating are applied to Skylight 1B and UV Filters
The Super HMC Circular Polarizer filters have seven layers of multi coating applied to the rear
surface to help eliminate internal reflections and ghosting. More info

Ultra Series

The ultra filters are a thin ring with no front female threads. They are 3mm thick, except the combination
UV/Circular Polarizer which is 5mm thick. Multi Coating is applied to both the front and rear filter
surfaces. Ultra Series are for wide angle lenses and  wide zooms to help reduce vignetting. More info

Bower

Bower: Bower is  an importer of filters. The current Bower filters are imported from Japan. They feature metal rings, optical glass. Comparable in quality to the Hoya Standard filters. Bower filters are a very good value.

Kenko

Made in Japan Aluminum Rings

Kenko Standard Filters

Both sides of filter are mono coated. Special effect filters such as Star are
not coated. See chart

Kenko Multi Coat

Kenko Multicoat filters are multi coated.  Average light transmission is over 97%
The multi coating helps reduce flare and ghosting.

Super Multi Series

Features Super multi coating average light transmission of 99.7%