Fake Hoya Pro 1 filters?

FreeloaderJoe

FreeloaderJoe

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Fancy a couple of new filters for my trip this summer including a circular polarizer. Fancy sticking to the Pro 1 range...

...how do you know they are genuine? Are the ones on Amazon legit...i'm always suspicious of their third party sellers.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoya-Digita...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1244584858&sr=1-2

Anyone recommend anywhere else to pick up one from? Also fancy a couple of ND filters.
 
Or you could try a Kenko PRO1D ;)
 
FreeloaderJoe said:
Fancy a couple of new filters for my trip this summer including a circular polarizer. Fancy sticking to the Pro 1 range...

...how do you know they are genuine? Are the ones on Amazon legit...i'm always suspicious of their third party sellers.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoya-Digita...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1244584858&sr=1-2

Anyone recommend anywhere else to pick up one from? Also fancy a couple of ND filters.
Click to expand...

Funny you mention that. I bought exactly that 67mm CPL from the seller in question, it arrived this morning.
Of course whether I'd be able to recognise a good fake, well that's a different matter. The box looks similar to the design of the other Hoya Pro1 box that I have (58mm UV) and the filter certainly has the correct writing on the side.
So it's possible it's a fake, but if so, they went to a lot of trouble to make it look the part.
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
So it's possible it's a fake, but if so, they went to a lot of trouble to make it look the part.
Click to expand...

Thing is the counterfeiters do go to a lot of trouble to make things look the part.
I bought a 'genuine' battery from a third party seller on Amazon which cosmetically seemed as good as the real genuine item. I would have been none the wiser if I hadn't found a page on Nikon's website on how to spot a dodgy one.
 
I suppose the old "if it seems to be too good to be true, it usually is!" would apply.

I know Canon and Nikon (as mentioned above) have a web page re how to spot the difference between real and fake, Sandisk does as well.

Might be worth looking on Hoya etc's web sites to see if they show you how to spot the difference ??
 
Schneider are said to have confirmed that they supply maxsaver.net It was mentioned on another internet forum after some googling. They seem to have a good reputation.
 
I can show you the Kenko CPL filter I bought from them:

kenko1.jpg


kenko2.jpg


ignore the silver sticker things on the case - they were the seals.
 
I bought a Hoya pro1 uv filter from Amazon, even though the optics seemed perfect, a year later the coating was coming off, I assume this was a fake. I also have a pukka Hoya pro i and I cant tell the difference between the filters or packaging, well, obviously i can now, the coatings are still on the real one

Allan
 
i often wondered about people going to the trouble of making fakes of relatively cheap items, until I heard a guy from BIC saying that counterfeit BIC pens was a huge problem for them...

i mean, they only cost a few pence each (the real ones)....how desperate for a bargain would you need to be to buy a fake ?
 
Profit margins on fake filters must be astronomical. These fakes made in China are just so good now. They are designed to look identical, even if they have no durability or equivalent performance. I have a Nokia 6310i I bought from eBay, and it looks and functions almost identically to the genuine item except for a couple of subtle menu differences and the fact that the Nokia sync software won't recognise it. But when you look really closely and compare it to a genuine phone, you can see there are subtle differences in the mold lines and the stickers are in a slightly different font. Scary. Really, nothing surprises me. The price of these things bears no resemblance to the actual manufacturing costs. It's all about recouping the R&D. Do you think a Datacolor Spyder Cube really costs anything approaching £40 to manufacture? http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/photography/spydercube.html
 
Am I right in thinking the difference between Kenko & Hoya Pro 1 is just in the coating of the glass, with the glass being identical?
 
anyone know how the coating is different?

and which is the better to go for?

and a UK seller for either at a good price?
 
I thought it was about time that I got around to having a quick sanity check of my Hoya filters. I have:
- 58mm Pro1 UV (bought from someone on this forum)
- 67mm Pro1 CPL (as bought from the Amazon link shown above)
- 77mm ND8 (bought from Kerso)

Here's a couple of photos.
IMG_6029.jpg

IMG_6030.jpg



As can be seen:
- The 67mm CPL is the only box to have an ID number printed above the barcode on the sticker
- Every one of them uses different size typeface on the filters. Being fair, the 77mm is not a Pro1
- The two Pro1's have different way of displaying where it's made. The 58mm shows just "Japan", whilst the 67mm says "Made in Japan".

Are we any closer to understanding which is/isn't a fake?
 
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