Reviews
Impressive quality and more impressive value.
I’ll start this review with a couple of points: I was already familiar with K&F Concept, as I have several of their lens adapters (available here and elsewhere) to use vintage lenses on modern digital cameras. So, I had an expectation of quality from them. Second, I’m pretty much a filter snob. I use a UV filter on all of my lenses as a combination image improvement step and a protective measure.
Those things being said, there are three basic filters that photographers should carry: UV/protective, neutral density, and circular polarizer. It’s convenient if more than one of your lenses use the same filter size, because you can just swap between lenses and sometimes stack them. The 55mm size I got works on two families of the vintage lenses I shoot with, and I had been lazy about getting the ND and polarizer to use with them, so this was a way to solve more than one problem. (This kit is available to fit a wide range of filter thread size).
I mentioned that I’m a filter snob. If you’re putting an extra glass surface between you and your subject, you don’t want it to reduce your image quality. For this reason, I’ve always used multilayer antireflective-coated filters. On first inspection, the K&F Concept obviously has a high quality coating. They are labeled “HMC,” which is a designation used by one of the major filter companies. It may be that that company makes these for K&F; if so, that validates the quality for sure. Looking through them, they are optically excellent. The filter rim is made with two knurled gripping areas to make it easy to install and remove. (These may interfere with installing some old-school lens caps that fit down over the barrel of the lens rather than clipping on) The polarizer rotates smoothly, and the ND4 is correct for a two-stop light reduction. The included case makes it easy to have the filters ready in your camera kit.
I like lens pens. Having a clean lens brush handy is a necessity if you shoot in the real world. But the cleaning tip is kind of amazing: It’s like having a microfiber magic wand to safely remove smudges from your optical surfaces.
So, overall I think this is a really nice kit and a great value. You can buy lesser filters for more money for sure. Consider the lens pen a surprise gift.
Those things being said, there are three basic filters that photographers should carry: UV/protective, neutral density, and circular polarizer. It’s convenient if more than one of your lenses use the same filter size, because you can just swap between lenses and sometimes stack them. The 55mm size I got works on two families of the vintage lenses I shoot with, and I had been lazy about getting the ND and polarizer to use with them, so this was a way to solve more than one problem. (This kit is available to fit a wide range of filter thread size).
I mentioned that I’m a filter snob. If you’re putting an extra glass surface between you and your subject, you don’t want it to reduce your image quality. For this reason, I’ve always used multilayer antireflective-coated filters. On first inspection, the K&F Concept obviously has a high quality coating. They are labeled “HMC,” which is a designation used by one of the major filter companies. It may be that that company makes these for K&F; if so, that validates the quality for sure. Looking through them, they are optically excellent. The filter rim is made with two knurled gripping areas to make it easy to install and remove. (These may interfere with installing some old-school lens caps that fit down over the barrel of the lens rather than clipping on) The polarizer rotates smoothly, and the ND4 is correct for a two-stop light reduction. The included case makes it easy to have the filters ready in your camera kit.
I like lens pens. Having a clean lens brush handy is a necessity if you shoot in the real world. But the cleaning tip is kind of amazing: It’s like having a microfiber magic wand to safely remove smudges from your optical surfaces.
So, overall I think this is a really nice kit and a great value. You can buy lesser filters for more money for sure. Consider the lens pen a surprise gift.
20/08/2023