Unscrewing a filter that refuses to budge

Yesterday, I was taking some photographs in very, very light drizzle

using a 150mm Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S lens. I had a Heliopan UV

filter on the lens that I removed before taking each shot. After

taking three or four shots, I was unable to remove the filter. End

of photographic outing.

 

I still can't get it off. I don't think that the drizzle is

responsible and the filter was not screwed on tight. The front of

the lens and the filter both unscrew in a counter-clockwise

direction. Consequently, I tried holding the front of the lens

stationary while trying to turn the filter counter-clockwise. This

didn't work, and based on an earlier photo.net thread, I may have

mostly managed to distort the filter.

 

I've never had this happen before. How do I get the filter off?

Should I remove the front of the lens with the filter and work from

there? Suggestions appreciated. And what is the best tool to carry

to deal with this situation in the future?

This might sound daft, but the same has happened to me once. Try hard as I may, it would

not budge using force until I tried to do it gently without any noticable pressure. It came

off like a breeze! Maybe worth a try, unless you have already done some deforming

damage

Be very careful, you might look into a filter wrench of the appropriate size see this link for examples

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home;jsessionid=AzaXioLS6T!1128060492?ci=1&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=SearchBar&A=search&Q=*&shs=filter+wrench

 

Do not force it. Good Luck

 

Pete

Heat the filter with a hot towel or something similar. It will expand and loosen.

You might try pressing a hard rubber bung (like a bath plug) flat

against the front of the filter and turning. Sometimes even the

stretched out palm of the hand might do the trick. The objective

is to get even pressure right around the circumference of the

filter mount. Gripping either side in the conventional manner can

flex the mount ring and act as a vice to clamp the filter onto the

front of the lens.

If you try everything reasonable and nothing works, you can do what I did...

 

I dropped a lens once, which jammed the filter in the threads and also broke the glass. I had to get it off and didn't want to damage the lens. So ... I *CAREFULLY* took a needle-nosed pliers, gripped the filter ring, and twisted the metal of the ring so that it bent inwards away from the metal of the lens filter thread. I did this very slowly, to avoid damaging the lens. After a fairly long time, I got enough of the perimeter of the filter ring bent inwards away from the lens that the rest of it just dropped out of the threads (be careful to angle the lens a bit downward so that the metal ring falls away from the glass of the front element). Then I cleaned the lens with an air blower, followed by a soft cloth (dabbing) to remove any tiny little glass particles left when the filter shattered.

 

If you want to do this you'll have to find a way to remove the glass. Using a glass cutter (VERY carefully) is probably better than dropping the lens on the driveway.

Place filter side down on a rubber non slip mat with the front section removed from the shutter. Apply very slight down pressure and turn. Even grabbing with your hand may distort the filter enough to make it not turn. Do not heat it as heat expands the filter making it tighter inside the lens.

 

Next best trick is a filter wrench. You may also try grabbing with a finger and thumb in the same place and try to turn.

I've used the sidewall of my car tire. Filter goes face first into the side of the tire, and you push slightly and twist the camera. The rubber should grip the filter ring. Check to make sure that you won't gouge the heck out of your filter though.

As Ron points out, I'll have to remove the front of the lens if I'm going to try the filter-against-rubber technique. Otherwise, all that will happen is that the front of the lens will start to unscrew. I haven't taken the front of a lens off before. Anything to be careful of?

I used to have this happen occasionally. Force isn't the answer. Just keep gently twisting counterclockwise off and on. If it isn't rusted or otherwise bound on, it will evenutally come off, at least mine always did. I don't have this problem any more after following John Sexton's suggestion of very very lightly coating the filter thread with Vaseline about once a year. Put it on and take it off with a cloth, leaving a only a very slight residue, that's all you need. You don't want to leave enough on the filter to attract dust or grit. It will solve the problem in the future, at least it has for me, I haven't had a sticking filter problem in the five or so years since I started doing this.

A pair of rubber/latex dish washing gloves works every time for me.

camera repairmen that are good will break the glass,without harming the lens, (if very stuck or stripped), and bend the ring inside to remove it.. not an expnesive task for hoplessly stuck filters..so dont get too voilent when help is near.. dave.

Yes, don`t loose any spacer rings that may be present. Don`t get any dirt in the shutter and store it in a bag while working on the front.

 

The vaselene idea seams like a good one although I use a trace of distributer cam lub leftover from when cars had points! Please note trace meaning as small an amount as possible.

 

The lens shade stuck on my Cosina Voitlander 25mm and the lube fixed the problem. Seems it stuck no matter how lightly it was put on.

 

Try to buy filters with brass mounts, not aluminum. The brass mount and aluminum lens will have a natural lubricity. That is why decent focus helicals have on brass and one aluminum component. Brass costs more so its a cost savings (for the manufacturer only). B plus W filters have brass mounts.

Yes,why are filter threads so prone to stick like this? Even being careful not to do the thing up too tight you can still end up with a really obstinate filter. I use the rubber non-slip mat technique. You can sometimes get these from hardware stores for opening jars and bottles and the like. In this case I would remove the front element taking care to not touch the glass surfaces then use a rubber mat on both the lens bit and the filter.

Try a small amount of paste wax on the threads of the filter next time before screwing it in place. Just a trace is all you need, not enough to fill up the threads, then wipe with a dry cloth to remove any extra.

 

Also works well to help film holders slide into the back under the ground glass. Use a small amount on the wooden surfaces that the holder slides on to make insertion and removal easier.

 

Use it on the sliding portion of the bed tracks on a Q-tip.

 

Pure carnuba wax is best if you can find it. Otherwise an automotive paste wax works fine. Don't use one with silicone added, makes refinishing nearly impossible.

some past waxes will harden and the filter will never come off. i used automotove wax on my tool surfaces and it hardened like a rock and it was buffed off, worked great for stopping rust on humid days, but it will turn white, and harden, in the fine grooves of a filter ite would lock it on permanantly.. the oils will get on the lens and are a bugger to get off.. if they fit right they screw on easily, and you dont tighten them much at all, and then you screw them off easily.. anything else is stripped threads or bent rims.. these are usually aluminum or aloy, and once they start gauling youve got problems.. good luck dave..

I'd rather not admit how the problem got fixed, but the solution was very much in line with some of the above suggestions, and maybe someone with a similar problem will read this thread.

 

This morning, I put the palm of my hand flat over the filter and with almost no pressure turned my hand counter-clockwise. Lo and behold, the filter unscrewed immediately. Looks like the pressure of my fingers on the filter ring was actually binding it. Ron, the Heliopan filter rings are indeed made of brass, and I wonder whether that makes them somewhat more likely to bind under pressure.

 

Despite the easy fix in this instance, my list of things to buy now includes either a filter wrench or lubricant. After hiking a good distance, finding a suitable subject and setting up, a suddenly stuck filter is really aggravating.

 

Thanks for the assistance.

Try putting a rubber band around the filter and turning it.

I've used David Choo's idea several times: a rubber band that just fits snugly on the filter seems to do the trick. Since I also use rubber bands to mark empty film holders (as vs. loaded and ready to shoot) I almost always have plenty of rubber bancs at hand.

At the grocery store, I bought a rubber grip for opening jar lids, works everytime. costs about $1.

I have been battling a 77mm B+W polarizer for about 3 days. I screwed the filter on my

70-200 2.8 Canon lens and for some reason it decided to saty there. No conventional

tricks would work. I tried cold, hot, rubber jar lid removing pads, freezing it, even liquid

wrend drops judiciously applied around the threaded ring. The fact that it is a polarizer

and rotated around the inner ring made it all the dicier. Finally in desperation I wnt to my

local Lowe's store, carried the lens in to the tool department and found the largest set of

channel locks on the rack. Making sure that the grooved jaws gently gripped the inner ring

and did not touch the actual filter ring, all it took was a gentle rotation of the wrench and

my filter was free. No damage to either component. I guess it was all about leverage

because the was no sign of cross threading or debris in the threads. This is my first such

experience in 26 years as a commercial shooter, but I think I'm going to put a tiny bit of

anti-sieze on all my polarizer threads.

 

Hope this saves someone three days of frustration!

 

Sincerely,

 

Jim Wilson

I've experienced this a number of times and tried all of the remedies here with varying degrees of success. Ok, not all of them; I never resorted to pliers yet, way too scary...

 

I came by this forum a while ago when it looked like pliers was the only way. On that occasion the rubber gloves (eventually) worked. What I was actually looking for was a good anti-seize compound to prevent the problem, which for me means no sticky, oily or waxy substrates.

 

What I found to work really well is graphite, in the form of a sharp pencil, run once around the male filter thread and blow-brushed off. It needs to be worked into the thread a few times before tightening up, but after that it should be possible to really lock up a circular polarizer without worrying too much about it binding to the lens.

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<p >Filter wrenches seem to be the way to go, but are very hard to come by in the Netherlands.</p>

<p >I had the same problem as Jim Wilson, with the added bonus of having a slim polarizer locked with a UV filter. In the end all it took was placing them in the freezer protected by a filter case. I thought I might have to heat the receiving filter after, on a warm plate from the oven, but when opening the filter case they practically fell off each other.</p>

<p >If you screw a filter on in a cold environment there is chance it won't come off in a warmer one, due to the expansion. I work in a number of different climates, but the temperature differences between inside and outside may already be enough to create problems. I'm hoping to come into some filter wrenches soon, but am happy with the freezer method for now. </p>

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<p>Hi Mike,<br /> <br /> I have found that an arthritic jam/pickle jar top remover is brilliant for stuck lens elements and filters. This thing is a handle with a thick/strong rubber strap which feeds into a handle for adjustment. This one is a “Boa-constrictor” and came from LakeLand Plastics, an on line store.<br /> <br /> Best Regards<br /> <br /> Rob</p>

after reading this thread the following course of action worked for me: had camera in fridge (not freezer) for maybe 30 min; placed right hand in thin dishwasher rubber glove; pressed camera / filter against the flat of the palm and turned entire camera counter-clockwise with the left hand. Miracle. Also getting now to apply pencil graphite on the threads!