Chinese filters - a positive experience

[diant]

30 minutes ago, dabateman said:

Then rinse with water and damp dry with microfiber cloth. 

David, I think this action make it damaged again.

The surface of my ZWB1 is like beeswax in its consistence, really. No water, no microfiber should touch it.

I would like to know - am I a single person in the Universe who faced with such property of ZWB1?

 

1 hour ago, Andy Perrin said:

I have rather brutally wiped my UG11 many times with no obvious signs of damage. 

Good news :)

And how it is with U340, very interesting... ?

[dabateman]

I have way too many Zwb1 filters from Jason.  None of them act like that. Something is wrong with the filter. 

I would message him to figure out what is going on.

Something else must have been shipped to you by mistake.  That can happen. 

[Andy Perrin]

I don’t own any U340. 

[lukaszgryglicki]

I have U340 - maybe 2-3 years already, no damage can be seen on it.

 

[diant]

2 hours ago, dabateman said:

I have way too many Zwb1 filters from Jason.  None of them act like that. Something is wrong with the filter. 

I would message him to figure out what is going on.

Something else must have been shipped to you by mistake.  That can happen. 

A good idea. I've wrote to him just now. May be something will clear up.

Meanwhile I've made two photos of my ZWB1 filter.

1st one - its outer surface after my first attempt to clean up a fatty deposition on it seen by me after opening a box.

2nd one - its inner surface with strange fatty deposition (probably from the factory). It is difficult to image it. In reality it is not so colourful but rather fatty-like in its appearance.

 

 

 

Two other filters from Tangsinuo Store come to me in perfect condition (QB39 and IR720).

[Christoph]

Here is a (perhaps stupid) question that may have already been answered. On the subject of IR contamination in ZWB1: Is it not possible to simply erase the red channel, thus removing IR in the image? It is apparently the case (at least with Nikon) that IR below approx. 800nm only gets into the red channel. Maybe someone can help me. Merci!

[Stefano]

It is true that IR in the 700-800 nm band is mostly recorded in the red channel, but UV around 360 nm is also mostly in the red channel. Removing it would probably clean up the contamination a bit, but also damage the UV signal. I actually never tried it.

[colinbm]

Try cleaning the ZWB1 with Hydrogen Peroxide.

[Andy Perrin]

8 hours ago, Christoph said:

Here is a (perhaps stupid) question that may have already been answered. On the subject of IR contamination in ZWB1: Is it not possible to simply erase the red channel, thus removing IR in the image? It is apparently the case (at least with Nikon) that IR below approx. 800nm only gets into the red channel. Maybe someone can help me. Merci!

What Stefano said, but also everything past 800nm goes into all three channels equally. The camera is quite sensitive still from 800-950nm or so, more than enough to blow out UV, as CharlesS learned over here.

[diant]

Today morning I received answer from Jason and he admitted to a problem with ZWB1 damaging tendency. His words:

================

ZWB1 is easy to get oxidation especially in the wet situation. Sorry for this kind of problem.
Cleaning suggestion:  Polish it using the cloth with toothpaste. It will work.
Please try this method first.

================

I'll of course try a toothpaste, but I am not sure that after such polishing I will have a good surface flatness for using it as photographic filter. More probably it will fit only to serve as a torch filter.

 

If to speak in general, I conclude that ZWB1 is not analogue UG11 and U340 (as it is asserted), for latter two are more stable and tolerate for water and cleaning. As regards ZWB1 - it was destroyed actually during two weeks travelling from China to Russia in plastic container packed with many layers of cellophane. In reality water had a little chance to penetrate inside, and this quality proved to be enough to oxidate ZWB1 totally in fortnight.

[Marco Lagemaat]

Cool guys this discussion, because I was busy resolving the same problem of the ZWB1, ZWB3 oxidation.

I had contact too with Jason, and indeed he acknowledged the problem and is busy to resolve the issue. One of the solutions he testing is to try to  temper the glass. He has sent me a sample to test (try out).

Then --> he recommend indeed to polish the filter with toothpaste. And yes.. it did not work (lol). So, my creative brain was looking around for solutions. and I found it. I have used headlight lens restorer from turtle Wax. (how surprising!!) disclaimer; I only (!!!) used the clarifying compound!! In seconds you will have the result as shown.

And! no complaint what so ever about Jason and his store. He provides a really good service despite his disclaimer on Ebay. As told he sends me full replacement without any cost.

 

Under;

ZWB1 before

 

 

ZWB3 before;

 

ZWB1 before in detail;

 

 

ZWB1 back before polish;

 

ZWB3 after Polish (in seconds)

 

 

ZWB1after Polish  (in seconds)

 

 

ZWB1 back after Polish (could done a bit better.. I am not satisfied) 

 

The product.

 

[dabateman]

Well according to the MSDS its:

Mixture
Component CAS Number Concentration (wt%)
Water 7732-18-5 >65%
Petroleum Distillates Hydrotreated Light 64742-47-8 7 – 13%
Glycerin 56-81-5 1 – 3%
White Mineral Oil 8042-47-5 1 – 3%
Nepheline Syenite 37244-96-5 10 – 18%

 

http://media.qualitydist.net/turtlewax/msds/turt-t240kt-rc.pdf

 

Thats interesting, its Nepheline Syenite dust mixed with oil and water, that you are polishing it with. 

Cesium oxide works similarly,  but might be better to avoid any scratches. I am not too familiar with Nepheline Syenite.  

[dabateman]

Many tooth pastes have micro silica particles that are used to actually polish teeth.  But not all do. Crest was famous for getting some blue silica stuck in peoples teeth.

So I can see why that was recommended.  But its not a good idea. Also not good to polish CDs which other have recommended. 

[Marco Lagemaat]

15 minutes ago, dabateman said:

Well according to the MSDS its:

Mixture
Component CAS Number Concentration (wt%)
Water 7732-18-5 >65%
Petroleum Distillates Hydrotreated Light 64742-47-8 7 – 13%
Glycerin 56-81-5 1 – 3%
White Mineral Oil 8042-47-5 1 – 3%
Nepheline Syenite 37244-96-5 10 – 18%

 

http://media.qualitydist.net/turtlewax/msds/turt-t240kt-rc.pdf

 

Thats interesting, its Nepheline Syenite dust mixed with oil and water, that you are polishing it with. 

Cesium oxide works similarly,  but might be better to avoid any scratches. I am not too familiar with Nepheline Syenite.  

Here you find the substance information;

https://echa.europa.eu/nl/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.131.767

 

turns out the Nepheline Syenite exist out of: 

Sodium potassium aluminium silicate

[diant]

Toothpaste in my case has worked good. 30-60 sec on each surface and I have now my ZWB1 surfaces without any traces of oxidization, but with some bunch of new tiny scratches (no one toothpaste can be guaranteed against some particles in it larger than first micrometers in size).

But after all (and close my eyes on these scratches) I can verify that I've returned this filter to a good working condition and test in already on my camera - all right, it works.

 

1 hour ago, Marco Lagemaat said:

I had contact too with Jason, and indeed he acknowledge the problem and is busy to resolve the issue.

It is very interesting to know what steps he is trying to do it.

One way is probably to vary its compound. But I suspect that some type of coating may be better (and more reliable) solution.

 

[Andy Perrin]

I wonder if this was why I had such poor images from my 8mm sample.

[Stefano]

50 minutes ago, Andy Perrin said:

I wonder if this was why I had such poor images from my 8mm sample.

Is your sample waxy? If it has clean surfaces, then probably the issue is something else.

[Marco Lagemaat]

On 10/15/2021 at 10:42 PM, Andy Perrin said:

I wonder if this was why I had such poor images from my 8mm sample.

 

I don't know for sure... I saw it too... 

On 10/15/2021 at 11:34 PM, Stefano said:

Is your sample waxy? If it has clean surfaces, then probably the issue is something else.

maybe the amount of transmission?? 

[JMC]

Just reading through this. Here's my 2p.....

 

Firstly, please do not use toothpaste. Most of it has silica in it and will damage the filter. Some toothpastes (such as those made by Arm and Hammer) use baking soda as abrasive. If I were to ever consider using any type of toothpaste, this would be the one I would use.

 

Next. Simplest one to try first - 3% hydrogen peroxide. Remove the filter from the ring and leave it in the hydrogen peroxide. I try with a few minutes soak first and then leave it over night if needed. Remove from the hydrogen peroxide and use a cue tip (cotton bud) to gently clean the surface. Then rinse with distilled water and finish off with a dry microfiber cloth. Once fully dry, remount in the filter ring and store with a silica gel pouch. This does the job on over 90% of filter degradation. If this does not work try cerium oxide paste, but get the correct grade as there are different ones. This advice came from Cadmium on here and has always worked for me (well nearly always, it didn't clean the degradation on a 40 year old UG1, but that had got so bad that it had actually etched the glass). From my perspective, the key is to remove it early before it had chance to dry down. With these type of filters, if they show the effect, expect to have do this on an ongoing basis whenever they are stored for a period of time.