to filter or not to filter?

Filters have been known to decrease imgage quality, filters have also been known to save you from buying a brand new lens, it all depends what kind of filter you get (cheap or pricey, or how much money your willing to put up if some how your camera falls.. I use them as a lens cap, but take them off here and there. They also keep smudges and keeping yuu from constantly cleaning the lens, which may rub off the coatring of the fron element

Now there's something I had not thought about.

It's ultimately up to you based on your assessment of the risk. I've always used a hood as my primary means of protection, but if I'm going to be in a wet or dusty or sandy environment, I add a filter for additional protection. If I'm shooting in a studio or is a relatively safe environment, I shoot with a hood and without a filter.

Mark

I use a filter for protection. The other day I was shooting an equipment instalation at work and took the filter off. I was cleaning the filter before I put it back and noticed some fine scratches on it. The kind you can only see at one particular angle. I have no idea what caused the scratches, but sure am glad they are on the filter and not the lens. I guess I know what my next camera purchase will be. I've used filters since my first SLR (Canon AT-1) and this is second time a filter has saved a lens.

Do you use a lens hood?

Much more often than not, the folks I see using a filter for protection forget to (or choose not to) use a lens hood. A properly designed (and INSTALLED) lens hood will prevent most, if not all, scratches on the lens or filter (which ever is out front).

You must also factor into the equasion that some of the people who don't use filters, could walk into B&H tomorrow and buy another lens if one got damaged.

I buy my stuff second hand and have to try and keep it as good as possible because if it's damaged, it won't be easy or quick to replace.

There are many issues and just because I do, or someone else doesn't should not force your decison. I may change my mind one day and so may they.

In a nutshell, if you want one, but a good one.

Graham

Not as often as I probably should. I guess I'm one of those folks who forgets. My equipment shoot was a perfect example. I left the hood at home. I took off the filter to shoot without it. I noticed the scratches when I cleaned it when I was done, before I placed it back on the lens to pack up.

Every lens I own has a filter on it(hoya pro1) and I do not see a loss in quality
using these filters,I allso allways have a hood on menses apart from my ef100 macro.

I had asked the same question, filter or no filter. I decided to get uv filter. and to my surprise not even a few months later my lens hit the handle bars on my bike and it cracked the edge of my filter but my glass is still great. My opinion is lens hoods are the best but if no lenshood the for sure uv. you can always take a filter off if you think it will affect the picture.

good luck!

Get the best optically out of your L glass and use a hood for protection, 'nuf said!

I believe in the added protection and peace of mind from using UV filters. Do buy the best ones though to minimize any image quality degradation. Here's a great test of the difference between good multi-coated filters versus cheep ones.

http://www.kenandchris​tine.com/gallery/10543​87

Yeah, me too. Good UV filters are the way to go. I personaly use 3 of them, stacked, because it's known that 1) they don't degrade image quality 2) offer protection from lots of things 3) ALSO protect from UVs (amazing!), and everyone knows UVs are bad, doctors say so, and if they say so for myself, it must apply to my lenses, right ?

My Canon L hit the floor without a UV filter, landing on the filter ring which thus bent, now that's a costly repair. I sometimes wonder if I would have had the UV filter on if the ring would have been ok. I'm sure the UV glass might have cracked but who cares, my filter ring may have not taken the brunt of the fall like it did the UV filter would have.

This is extreme I know...

When i was a photo editor at my other college paper, one of the photographers dropped his Nikon lens. Now he didn't have a hood since it was just holding it, but the filter saved it from being destroyed. Because that was the only thing cracked since it landed on it. Lens worked fine. It saved him from his stupidity which could have cost him a lot more.


To see if the filter does work well, just do tripod test with and without the filter with same settings. And if you can spot the difference, then you know it does take away quality.

I don't know if I should interpret that as a joke or as sarcasm. If the second - you're entitled to your own opinion and beliefs - it won't have any impact on mine.

I know for sure the front element was saved from scratches when I stumbled on a trek, banged the hood loose on a cliff and dropped the camera that ended up lens down on a rock. The filter was scratched deeply but the lens was unhurt. That's enough of a personal experience for me to know I want filters on my lenses. They can be taken off if I believe they might cause a problem, like when shooting at night with strong light sources in the frame. In most other situations there might be a small difference in image quality but I have never been able to see it in the pictures.