Why use a Matte Box?
 

Can someone give me the readers digest on the advantages of using a matte box? Maybe a link or two on the subject that you recommend? Thanks in advance.

1. Accepts square professional filters

2. Looks cool like a professional...

The three biggest reasons for a matte box are to hold filters, shade the lens against flare and to save time.

The filters are square or rectangular and slide into slots in the matte box. This is much quicker than screwing in a round filter and you can stack multiple filters and/or alter their position in front of the lens. These square filters are about $200+ each, though.

Matte boxes have a wide sunshade in the front that acts as a giant lens hood but you can also add a top, side and even bottom flags to further block extraneous light that can cause flare. Also, actual mattes corresponding to the angle of view of the lens being used can be installed to the front lip of the sunshade to further block extra light.

Finally, high-end production matte boxes have a bracket that allow it to swing away from the lens and move fore/aft so that you can quickly change the lens or clean the front element of the lens while the matte box and its filters are still mounted to the rails.

Everything Tim says is dead on. Plus, originally there were 'mattes' shaped in various shappes, not just the camera field of view. Things like circles, binoculars, hearts, keyholes, etc. could be placed in the box to suggest and 'matte' out the edges of the frame. This is all done in post nowadays, with electronic mattes, but it's still possible.

Hi there

I got one for my Z1 for the main reason that if I'm going to invest in good quality filters, these are going to far excede the camera's life...4x4's are pretty universal, I won't have to buy a different size screw on for every lens of camera I may purchase in future... (I have a whole stack of screw on 35mm still filters, none of which are any use on my recently acquired Canon DSLR)

Also the French flag makes a real difference in bright sunny conditions, I've greatly reduced the flare you can get from the sun...pictures look much nice even shot directly into the light...

regards
Gareth

Yes, the French flag gets round the universal problem of the inefficiency of the supplied lens hood. This is only designed to effectively hood the very widest angle of the zoom's focal lengths, so a matte box and / or flag are excellent at keeping non image forming light off the front element.

Thanks everybody! They do look cool.