[riff]

I like lens hoods, some of my lens don't have hoods, some don't, some are to small.
I have one lens with a screw on metal hood, the lens cap mounts on the hood. Love that and would like more.
I like CPL sometimes and will be getting ND filter(s)
I currently have lens from 46mm to 77mm filter threads.

I curious what other have done to sort out such a mess and how your solution worked.

[gofour3]

I have the original hood for all my 50 or so lenses, as well as the cases for most.

As a film only shooter I have b&w and colour filters sets in: 49mm, 52mm, 58mm, 67mm, 77mm and 82mm.

I have three metal storage cabnets to hold all this and my 15 camera bodies.

Phil.

[blackcloudbrew]

I have boxes of filters and hoods for all different sizes, no help here, just buy more!

[Eric Auer]

Most of my older manual focus film lenses are 49, 52, 55mm and I have them all stepped up to 55mm filters and hoods (I like the old fashioned rubber hoods for wide angle lenses.)

Everything outside those diameters have dedicated filters and hoods.

[baro-nite]

I have lenses in 49, 52, 58, 62, 67, and 77mm filter thread. The 77s are of course telephotos, and all I need there is a CPL, so I have that in 77mm. I have 77-67 and 77-62 step-up rings for those rare occasions I want to use the CPL on one of those lenses (WA and macro lenses, so CPL isn't called for often). I have a 52mm CPL and a 52->49 step-up ring to cover the 49 and 52 threads. When I decided to buy a set of ND filters I got them in 67mm with a 67-52 step-up as I don't want to duplicate these. Now that I'm contemplating film photography again I may pick up some colored filters in 52mm.

Nothing for my 58-thread lens! Another macro.

Rubber hoods in all sizes except 77mm.

Not exactly a systematic approach.

[magkelly]

There are decent substitute hoods for a lot of the Taks on Amazon if that helps. I got one for my 49mm's there and it works fairly well actually. I think it cost me $8 as I recall. They have most of the regular sizes from what I've seen. They have caps too but they're rather pricey. I wish they weren't quite so. I could use a few extras, particularly for the M42's but I just can't afford what they're asking for cap sets. It's rather absurd to be asking what they do for plastic caps, but the hoods, they're fairly reasonable.

[riff]

Thanks everyone for chiming in!
baro-nite looks like you have the most systematic approach so far.
magkelly I have a pretty complete set of original hoods for my taks. I'm looking at these New Metal Telephoto 62mm Screw-in Lens Hood + Cap I really like the lens cap on the hood!

[Just1MoreDave]

I just got the same thing from Heavystar except 55mm. He sells some unbranded front pinch caps similar to the Pentax OEM style, that I like. I have replaced the cap on a few of these hoods with the nicer caps. The other caps get sold with lenses. Typically the cap that goes with the hood is the next filter size up, so for 55mm it's a 58mm. The hoods have a regular filter thread on the end too, so you could screw a filter on the end, though that would be worse for flare. Heavystar's rear caps for Pentax K have the extra rear flange to cover the contacts.

If I was more settled about the lenses I'm keeping, I would have a better system.

[Tonto]

My lens filter diameters go like this 40.5 (Q prime)-49,52,72

I have all my filters in 72mm which is my largest diameter lens and use a couple of step rings 49 and 52 to 72mm- I would get a 40.5mm CPL for the Q if I get one however just to keep the kit small. Have to say step rings are ALOT cheaper than extra filters!

Each lens has a cap although sometimes I just swap between two lenses with a matching cap 52 or 72mm thread.

I still need to get some more hoods, usually the standard hood that comes with the lens however I have two DAL lenses, some 2nd hand lenses and the Q 01 prime so will probable get the replica one for the 01 prime and maybe a screw on rubber hood for everything else. I find I never use the hoods in combination with filters so no concern with that.

[Sandy Hancock]

Every lens I own has its own hood (many are built-in), so step rings wont work.
I made a conscious decision to buy lenses preferentially with 49mm filter threads. I only have polarisers for the other sizes (58, 67 and 77). They all fit in one LowePro S&F filter pouch.

[steve1307]

The lenses I use have either 49mm ( primes), 58mm (55-300 & 55/1.2 ), 62mm (18-135) or 77mm (DA*300) threads.
I have hoods for all which Pentax provided .... I bought a 58mm screw in from heavystar on ebay for the Revuenon as it badly needs it.

Because we have so much sunlight all the time in Australia I always have C-POL with me for whatever lenses I take. I've got 4 B+W C-POL's 49, 58, 62 or 77mm

The only other filters I use are ND's 49mm 3-stop, 58mm 3-stop and a HOYA 49mm 9-stop.
I dont have an ND for the DA*300, pretty sure I'll never will want to deliberately reduce the light coming into this lens. I'm usually trying to increase the shutterspeed or the DOF.
Same story, no ND for the 18-135 it's slow enough already and it tends to stay on f8.


The 77mm being unique to the DA*300 stays with it.
All the others I can carry in a small Tiffen pouch with nice little dividers.

I dont like step rings that much, the only one I have is a 49-58 which allows me to stack my 2 ND8's to make a "6-stop"

[bdery]

For filters and rings, I always carry with me a wallet of sorts, made to carry the filters. It takes up to 6 large filters, and you can fit two smaller ones into each compartment. Works for me.

[Ratmagiclady]

With a few exceptions, I basically like to step-ring almost anything I might use filters on to 55mm, and get 55mm screw in hoods to match those: this means most lenses either take 55mm filters already (my old Canon lenses usually take those,) that way if I need to add a filter, I just unscrew the hood and put the filter on, and can replace that hood:

(55mm happens to be a convenient smaller size for me: fits most of my old such Canon lenses, and it's big enough to step down my Mamiya glass a little to: and this means I've got a bunch of hoods and to go around for everything, and don't have to carry a lot extra around. (My bigger diameter glass isn't in such a tidy arrangement but it's very possible to get by with two sizes: something near the bigger end of the smaller sizes, and something maybe as big as your biggest larger one: buying/having everything in only your biggest size might prove cumbersome and expensive: it'll depend a bit on what you use most with what,


(Which two sizes to choose may take a bit of planning: 58mm might be a good smaller size for a Pentaxian with a lot of lenses: 55mm filter threads in particular aren't common anymore, which can mean some bargains on older stuff but potentially make it harder to find the brand-new thing in that size. )



But basically you can use a few step rings to simplify matters and reduce weight and bulk prety handily, whatever you do. I don't use a lot of filters, but I do like a rigid hood on every lens, so it helps to think in a bit of a system for when I do.

I like going to 'Mr. Heavystars' for more of the same brand and all, if I haven't come by like a stock hood or something old I just like for a given thing. He's usually got the S&W brand stuff in about any size or length you might want: (It's been a while, really, ) it's nice to be able to get it all from the same place and generally matching, seems like a nice and generally-quite efficient fellow, too.

[riff]

But basically you can use a few step rings to simplify matters and reduce weight and bulk prety handily, whatever you do. I don't use a lot of filters, but I do like a rigid hood on every lens, so it helps to think in a bit of a system for when I do

Though I just quoted this bit most of what you posted is along the lines I was wondering about, thanks for your in-site.

Thanks all for sharing your setups.

[abacus07]

Personally I dislike step rings. I can see this being a bigger issue if you have a lot of zooms that each have different filter sizes but you really don't need a lot of filters on digital. A good 3 stop ND and CIRPOL should cover most of your needs. for the ltd's that's $25 and $75 for really good coated filters. If it were me then I would recommend getting really good filters for your most used lens and then getting the cokin square filter system to cover your other lenses.

Filters
49mm - 3 stop ND, CIRPOL and 9 stop ND - 90+% of my photos/lenses
52mm - 2 stop ND and LINPOL - I initially bought these for a couple of lenses that I barely use with the plan to use a step ring for most of my 49mm filters. I would not buy this set again opting for the 49mm and cokin square solution instead but it was only $75ish. No big loss.
Cokin 3 stop GND and I'm in the process of buying the holder, CPL, ND and shade. This will fit all future larger filter lenses that I buy in the future.

Hoods
I use the hood that came with the lens or a variety of rubber/plastic/metal screw-in hoods. My favorite is using the takumar telephoto hood on my A50f1.7. Yes, it's as big as the lens but it's also metal and it gives a lot of protection. The 49mm Pentax center pinch lens cap drops perfectly into place inside the lens hood.

Overall I prefer metal screw in hoods even if they take up more room. You can usually use one lens hood for several different focal length since the cropped sensors make vignetting less of an issue. The Takumar telephoto hood barely vignettes on my M28f2.8.