What filters do you recommend?

[golfnut]

For the following lenses, I need your advice on filters:
17-40mm f/4.0L
28-75mm f/2.8 (Tamron)
70-200mm f/4.0L
50 f/1.4

To start off, what filters should I buy for them?
For UV filters, do you have a preference towards Hoya, B+W, Tiffen or Canon?
Should I be purchasing the slim version?

Pretty basic stuff (I know), but I appreciate your help nonetheless.

Thanks!

[Olegis]

I'm using UV filters on all my lenses (except for the 50mm f/1.8 MkII and the Tokina 17mm f/3.5) for protection. Regarding the brands - B&W are excellent (but expensive), Hoya Multi coated and Super Multi coated are great too (generally cheaper than the B&W). I used Tiffen UV and polarizer filter with my old Minolta Dimage 7i camera - they were OK. Never had a Canon filter though ...

About the filters types - the UV are great for protection and for fuiltering that bluish haze you have sometimes in your landscape pictures. The polarizer is another recommended filter, especially for landscape photography. It darkens the sky and makes colors more saturated. One more quality of polarizer is to eliminate reflections on non-metalic surfaces - it can be useful when shooting through glass or water. Or, it can be used for reducing the dynamic range of the images - some reflections are just blown out highlights, and the polarizer can sometimes deal with them.

Another useful filter for landscape photography is Graduated ND (neutral density) filter - is helps to deal with landscapes that have more dynamic range than the camera can handle. For example - you have a composition with some dark area (a forest below the horizon line) and some bright area (the sky above the forest). The dynamic range of the overall brightness is broader than the camera sensor can capture, so you will end up with underexposed forest or overexposed sky. Now, if you put the filter on with its darker half up, it will help you to reduce the brightness of the sky (leaving the forest as is) and bring the overall composition to something the sensor can capture without problems. This kind of filter is usually square-type (the usual round screw-type is pretty useless), so you have to get also a special holder for it.

About the slim versions of filters - they are useful for wide-angle lenses, as the filters in front of such lenses tend to vignette. I would be worried about the 17-40 f/4L - regular (not slim) filters can vignette on this lens. To check whether you need the slim version or the regular version - just jump to the nearest photo store and try some filters with this lens. Generally you won't want to buy the slim version because it tend to cost much more than the regular version - therefore you'll have to check it for yourself.

Hope it helps :)

[Europa]

I prefer heliopan filters.

[Anders Östberg]

I have best quality (Hoya S-HMC or B+W MRC) UV filters on all lenses, I like the protection and also rather clean the filter than the front element of the lens. I don't see any degradation in image quality whatsoever. Some say UV filters is a waste of money, I don't agree obviously...

I also have two B+W polarizers (58mm and 77mm) and a step-up ring for the lenses I have with 72mm filter diameter. Don't use these much so far.

My opinion (to second Oleg's view) on graduated ND filters... I wouldn't buy screw-in filters for this. You're limiting your composition as you can't choose where in the image the light/dark division occurs. I'd rather look at something like a Cokin filter holder for this. With digital it is also sometimes possible to do without, just take two different exposures and mix them in post-processing.

I'd like to get one or two regular ND filters for experiments with running water though.

On slim filters... unless you have a full frame camera (film, or 1Ds, 1DsII) forget about slim filters. There is no way a regular filter will cause vignetting on a 1.3x or 1.6x body. The slim filters are very expensive, less sturdy and often have no front threads so you'll have problems fitting a lens cap or adding a second filter (maybe not recommended but handy if in a hurry). Just get the regular filter.

As to other types of filters, I used to own a whole bunch of Cokin filters (stars, lines, diffusers, colors) for my Minolta film camera but dumped it all when going digital. Fun to use but those filter effects can't be "un-done" so I now prefer taking the picture without filter and then experiment in Photoshop.

EDIT: Maybe a disclaimer on the vignetting/slim filter thing; the above applies to regular lenses, I would not be quite so sure about the new "digital" lenses (reduced image circle for APS-C sized sensor only, like Canon's EF-S lenses ). Some of those are very wide so I'd advice checking what filters are suitable.

[sparker1]

I have seen vignetting on my EF-S 18-55 lens, at the wide end, when using a regular UV filter. For such an inexpensive lens, I wonder why I even bought a filter. Was in buying mode, I suppose.

[golfnut]

Thanks for the insight and recommendations.

[AcuraFan]

i have tiffen UV filters on all my lens. as i played around with them, i find i want to get a Moose circular polarizing/81a combo filter for my 77mm and 58mm lens.

regarding circular NDG filters (the screw in type), how do you tell where the cut off point is? i have tiffens 2 and 3 stops; and when point up into the light, it looks like the whole filter's blocking :shrug:

[KevC]

Hm. I'm definitely gonna invest in a filter for the 85/1.8 when I get around to buying it. Maybe even on my 35-105. But I'm wondering if that's even necessary, my dad has used to for all these years without one. Hm...

[DocFrankenstein]

I'll get a BW filter for any decent piece of glass that I have. I want a skylight filter for sigma 70-200, but it costs a 100 bucks. :(

Do not buy cheap filters.
1 - the quality is gonna be bad
2 - you'll end up taking it off

I wasted 50 bucks on a Hoya non MC 77mm for the sigma and it was just a waste of money.

[ohenry]

Filters: Circular Polarizer, ND, hard and soft graduated ND filters.

Personally, I don't use UV -- but to each their own, I guess.

[Raj]

A question

while shooting outdoors, for example landscape & some people shots, can I just leave a UV or polarizer filter on ? I have only a sigma lens & keep a MC protector on all the time. Guess it would be better to have a polarizer or UV filter instead, if I can keep it on outdoors.

Based on explanation above looks like UV will make skies blue while polarizer will do that + some other stuff like being helpfull when shooting behind the glass. So I would rather go for a polarizer & keep it on all the time....

Apologies if this is too lame ....Please comment.
Thanks

[DocFrankenstein]

With digital UV filters don't make much difference. It's film they were designed for.

[Raj]

Well go for polarizer then.
My question remains though
> can I just keep it On outdoors...

[Olegis]

The effect with polarizer filter can be "too much" sometimes. See these pictures, for example :

http://www.pbase.com/olegis/image/24116511
http://www.pbase.com/olegis/image/24116509
http://www.pbase.com/olegis/image/24116513

Those are from my trip to London a year and a half ago. I left the polarizer on all the time thinking that the dark sky is actually a very cool effect, but later when viewing the pictures on my PC, I was a little dissapointed with the effect - the sky was too dark in some of the pictures.

[Raj]

Yep, definately dosent looks too good....

[René Damkot]

This might provide interesting reading: http://www.photo.net/equipment/filters/

If you buy an UV or Pol filter, buy a decent one. That means multicoated, high quality filters. That also means they will be expensive..... You might not use a polarizer often, but it cannot be replaced by any digital postprocessing, so I think it's the only filter you truly *need*. You could buy one for the largest filter size you'll be using it on, and buy a couple of step-down rings....
A UV filter you might keep on the lens for 'protection'. A pol filter, you use only when you need it.