72-58mm step down ring. bad pictures?

[Ranger Ford]

I have lots of 58mm filters. If i got a 72mm filter size lens and got a step down ring to fit, would it affect the image quality?

Thanks.

[Dylan8i]

if your filters are bigger than the lense its usually ok ( unless really really widde angle lense), if the lense is bigger than filters you will get severe vingietting(sp?)

[another view]

It won't affect things like sharpness, but putting a filter on that's so much smaller than the lens' diameter will probably cause vignetting, which is a darkening around the corners. You may see some of this by looking through the viewfinder but it will be a little more pronounced in the images, since almost all viewfinders are less than 100% coverage.

[freygr]

Just not a good idea. Using step up rings is OK but step down rings for filters is not. 77mm to 58mm is a big step and can cause problems like vignetting, and if that doesn't happen it will make the F stop larger.

[Don Schaeffer]

That's a pretty extreme drop. Small drops (like 52-50 or 49) might work but that will give you a lot of vignetting.