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Hoya 0678 55mm HMC Yellow Filter - Screw-in — main product image
Hoya 0678 55mm HMC Yellow Filter - Screw-in
Hoya 0678 55mm HMC Yellow Filter - Screw-in
Hoya 0678 55mm HMC Yellow Filter - Screw-in
Hoya 0678 55mm HMC Yellow Filter - Screw-in
Hoya

Hoya 0678 55mm HMC Yellow Filter - Screw-in

★★★★★4.7 (138 reviews)

Pull dramatic storm clouds from flat skies — the Hoya 55mm HMC Yellow K2 filter gives your black-and-white work the tonal separation it's been missing.

$49.90*
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*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Last updated:Jul 14, 2026.Price and availability are subject to change.

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Overview

The Hoya 55mm HMC Yellow K2 filter is a classical tool for black-and-white photographers who want tonal control without reaching for the heavy-handed orange or red. In daylight on a landscape shoot, it quietly darkens the blue channel — separating clouds from sky, adding definition to distant foliage, giving brick and stone facades a sense of texture they lose on flat-lit days. For portrait work outdoors, it's the filter you reach for when you need just enough contrast to give skin tones separation from a bright sky background without turning your subject's face into a silhouette.

The construction is straightforward and well-executed: Hoya's HMC (Hoya Multi-Coating) process lays six anti-reflective layers on the glass surface, reducing ghosting and maintaining contrast when the sun is in or near the frame. The slim black aluminum ring keeps the filter's profile low, making it compatible with lens hoods and stackable with a polarizer when conditions call for both. At 55mm it covers a wide range of APS-C kit lenses and standard primes. For film shooters, this is a permanent addition to the filter wallet; for digital photographers doing serious black-and-white conversion work, it delivers a look that in-camera raw profiles can approximate but rarely fully replicate in highlight microcontrast and sky gradation.

Key Features

CREATES NATURAL TONES WITH MILD CONTRAST BOOST – This Yellow K2 55 mm lens filter subtly darkens blue tones and improves sky and foliage detail, perfect for black and white photography using camera lens filters and accessories.

RENDERS SKIES, FOLIAGE & ARCHITECTURE MORE NATURALLY – This 55mm filter gently enhances contrast in outdoor daylight exposures, helping you capture true-to-life detail with camera lens effects filters across portraits, landscapes, or structures.

6-LAYER HMC MULTI-COATED GLASS FOR SHARPER RESULTS – Reducing flare and ghosting, Hoya’s optical-grade multi-coated glass ensures 97%+ light transmission—ideal for high-resolution lenses and filters for camera lens shooting scenarios.

LIGHTWEIGHT SLIM FRAME FOR A CLEAN, SECURE FIT – Designed with a slim black aluminum frame, this screw-in filter ensures a seamless fit on DSLR lenses, ideal for photo filter lens effects without vignetting, even when stacked with other filters.

PRO-GRADE OPTICAL GLASS FOR NATURAL, TRUE-TO-LIFE IMAGERY – Crafted with HOYA’s renowned multi-coated glass, this yellow K2 camera lens filter delivers clean, balanced tones for photographers seeking realistic contrast and clarity in black and white outdoor photography.

Specifications

Thread Size
55mm
Filter Type
Yellow K2
Coating
Hoya Multi-Coated (HMC), 6 layers
Light Transmission
97%+
Frame Material
Slim black aluminum
Mount Type
Screw-in
Filter Factor
Approx. 1 stop
Brand
Hoya
Model
0678

Pros & Cons

👍 Pros

  • Produces natural-looking tonal separation in skies and foliage without the aggressive darkening of orange or red filters — ideal for portraits in sunlight where you want flattering contrast, not blocked-up shadows.
  • HMC multi-coating keeps flare controlled when shooting into bright overcast light — a situation where uncoated yellow filters turn mushy and low-contrast.
  • Screw-in 55mm thread fits a huge range of kit and standard prime lenses with no adapter required, keeping the workflow clean.
  • Slim frame design makes filter stacking practical when you need a polarizer on top for additional sky control.
  • Optical glass quality holds up to close inspection when shooting high-resolution sensors — no corner softness or color fringing introduced by the filter itself.

👎 Cons

  • The yellow effect is subtle enough that photographers shooting in heavily overcast flat light may find it has minimal visual impact — orange or red would be needed for dramatic effect in those conditions.
  • At 55mm thread size, this filter won't cross-fit lenses with 58mm, 62mm, or 67mm front elements without a step-up ring, which adds to the kit cost.
  • The filter itself doesn't include a protective case, making it more vulnerable to scratches in a bag when not mounted.
  • Shooters working primarily in digital color photography will find limited practical use for this filter, as the conversion effect can be replicated in post.

Frequently Asked Questions

It absorbs blue light and transmits yellow, which means blue sky renders darker and white clouds pop with genuine separation. Foliage gains contrast against architectural stone or concrete. The effect is subtle — a yellow filter is the gentlest of the contrast filters — so you get natural-looking enhancement rather than the dramatic darkening of an orange or red.
The six-layer HMC coating reduces surface reflections to well under 1%, which eliminates the veiling flare you'd get from uncoated glass on bright overcast days. Light transmission stays above 97%, so you're not sacrificing exposure headroom. The coating also resists smearing, which matters when you're cleaning glass in the field.
The Yellow K2 carries roughly a 1-stop filter factor under daylight. Modern TTL metering reads through the filter, so autoexposure cameras compensate automatically. If you're shooting incident-metered film or using a handheld meter, add +1 stop to your reading.
The slim aluminum frame is designed to minimize vignetting. On a 55mm thread at normal-to-telephoto focal lengths, you won't see any. At 24mm or wider on a full-frame body, check your corners — stacking a second filter over this one is where vignetting becomes a real risk on ultrawide glass.
For color photography it's essentially neutral. Its primary value is monochrome — either shooting film in-camera or converting raw files to black and white in post, where a yellow channel simulation can be applied instead. That said, some digital photographers use it to cut haze on daylight exterior shots with a subtle warming effect.

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