Stuck filter (Page 3): It must be the season for stuck filters. At last nights photo club outing we had a lady with just that problem. She handed the camera to me and it was unstuck in...

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

It must be the season for stuck filters. At last nights photo club outing we had a lady with just that problem. She handed the camera to me and it was unstuck in seconds. She was flabbergasted and stated she had tried for an hour to get it free. And now, the rest of the story...

The problem is when you try and grab the filter sides and it warps the filter applying uneven pressure. The solution is to not grab the sides of the filter but simply point the lens up and place your palm over the entire filter pushing down and twist CCW. Of course this may not work on a CP or VND filter as they are designed to spin freely. You may also have to do some cleaning of the filter if your palm accidentally touched the surface but that's par for the course.

AlfredU Loc: Mooresville, NC

d3200prime wrote:

Basically, you need a rubber mat of some sort, for example, a drawer liner. Place the lens filter side down and press down firmly and evenly on the lens sides while turning. The filter should loosen and then can be easily screwed off by hand. This technic has never failed me, hope it works for you.

Try this first. This is amazingly simple and cannot possibly damage your lens or filter like most of the other suggestions can. This works so well you will be amazed.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Rich Maher wrote:

Try putting the lens in the freezer for about 20 minutes. worked for me.
Adorama sells filter wrench sets that also work well.

I bought the cheep plastic wrench set from Adorama a few years ago and they broke because the plastic is to thin and flimsy. If you put a rubber band around the filter, it will give you the grip you need to unscrew it with your hand.

AlohaJim Loc: Retired. Hawaii >> N. Arizona.

EdgarCPoone wrote:

I am sure this is not the first time it has happened to anyone so perhaps someone has a trick to loosen a filter. I try to be careful and not over tighten a filter as I mount it but somehow it has gotten 'stuck'. It is a metal Hoya on a plastic barrel, does anyone know of a trick to loosen the filter with out torqueing the filter/lens barrel so hard that the lens are moved knocked out of proper focus alignment?

B+W filters get really really stuck. Maybe the teeth/grooves are sharp. I don't know why. Other brands I've used have not gotten quite so bad. Sometimes Hoya. Not so much for Tiffen. Though now I only use B+W. I also notice that different brand filters do not get as stuck against each other.
And, the "Nano" filters have a very thin frame so "brocolli" rubber bands don't work well.
The most common culprit are clear lens filters getting stuck to polarizers. Almost never the clear filter stuck to the lens itself, at least not horribly.
Thoughts:
1. If a clear filter and ND and/or polarizer are stuck together, it is less stress on the lens to take off the entire stuck filter bundle, then wrestle with it off camera with 2 rubberized lens wrenches. (cheap and well worth it).
2. If you absolutely have to use a wrench against the filter on the lens itself, and the lens is a zoom, extend the zoom all the way to give you something to grab, up close to the filter, so there's less strain against the lens barrel internals.
3. It is safer to put filters on rather loosely in the first place. They do not have to be "tight".
4. Polarizers naturally tighten because they have to be rotated to use them. Thus, keep them a little loose to begin with.
j

rcarol

d3200prime wrote:

Basically, you need a rubber mat of some sort, for example, a drawer liner. Place the lens filter side down and press down firmly and evenly on the lens sides while turning. The filter should loosen and then can be easily screwed off by hand. This technic has never failed me, hope it works for you.

old_photo_fan

I'm going to try a couple of these answers myself. I have a Canon SX50 that uses an adapter ring for filters. Wouldn't you know, the first one I put on it, got stuck. It's so thin, not sure I could get a filter wrench on it, but the gripper pad might work!

old poet

I had one that would not yield to any of the methods mentioned. I carefully used a Dremel cutting wheel to cut a notch on opposite sides of the filter ring. Then, I sat the back of a table knife blade across the notches to use for leverage. It worked. The filter ring had been bent by a drop. I wish the companies would notch the rings like this. It would solve these problems.

rcarol

Les Brown wrote:

I had one that would not yield to any of the methods mentioned. I carefully used a Dremel cutting wheel to cut a notch on opposite sides of the filter ring. Then, I sat the back of a table knife blade across the notches to use for leverage. It worked. The filter ring had been bent by a drop. I wish the companies would notch the rings like this. It would solve these problems.

I think that having notches in the filter is a fantastic idea.

ggenova64

Notches on the filter with a circular wrench that locks on to the filter. Similar wrench for removing/changing oil filters in cars! Any HedgeHoggers former Engineers?

drklrd Loc: Cincinnati Ohio

johneccles wrote:

My UV filter has a couple of notches in the rim, so I can use a narrow blade or metal ruler to turn the filter off if it's tight. If your filter does not have these notches you could "with care" make your own using a junior hacksaw with a fine blade.

I used a file back in the days of film for a similar purpose. This will work well for a lens filter just be sure to blow the dust off the lens and then use a brush to finish removing filings before the use of a moistened lens cleaning paper used very lightly and the clean the lens properly. Back in film days my Bronica backs all looked alike and I had at least 4 for 220 film so to know which film back had problems I notched each one on a side with one notch to the last one having 4 notches. I di the same to my 35 mm cameras placing a slight notch in the film frame so I knew which 35mm camera was the problem body. Today you just set up the digital file names as different for each camera. Great hack to fix a really stuck filter.

Charlie7

[quote=big-guy]It must be the season for stuck filters. At last nights photo club outing we had a lady with just that problem. She handed the camera to me and it was unstuck in seconds. She was flabbergasted and stated she had tried for an hour to get it free. And now, the rest of the story...

Zip tie around the filter works great. Has internal grooves.

Daryl New Loc: Wellington,New Zealand

Crude but effective.A very small screwdriver at back of filter,twist screwdriver and filter pops off.when I did it the filter was still able to be screwed back on.i was that desperate I even tried a hacksaw......shudder at thought...lol

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

All the good ways to remove have been mentioned, so when you get it off inspect the threads on both filter abd lens for the presence of some kind of grit that might cause a 'locking.'

ggenova64

Your Awesome Charlie!

photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

Most often a filter jams onto the lens body due to operator error. Finger pressure on opposite sides of the filter ring can cause it to distort (Out of round) thus creating the bind. Thus the success of filter wrenches that grip around the full circumference of the filter rim I've found that gently putting the palm of the hand flat against the filter then twisting the hand to loosen the filter will often result in successfully loosening a "stuck" filter by allowing it to Unjam, I've even loosened "stuck" polarizing filters this way.

Good luck