How many of u use a UV filter?

KnightsPaintball wrote in post #14671783
I use filters when shooting paintball games just in case..

Most filters are not only useless against such impact but they can actually cause MORE damage than a paintball can to the front element of a lens. That's because the shards from a broken filter would be driven hard into the lens' front element.

Rather than using an ordinary filter, find something that is MUCH more resistant to breaking. Ideally, a resilient plastic filter that's optically good enough would be the thing to go for. Hoya makes a break-resistant filter that could also be used, but I have seen no testing done for its coating performance.

SkipD wrote in post #14671891
Most filters are not only useless against such impact but they can actually cause MORE damage than a paintball can to the front element of a lens. That's because the shards from a broken filter would be driven hard into the lens' front element.

Rather than using an ordinary filter, find something that is MUCH more resistant to breaking. Ideally, a resilient plastic filter that's optically good enough would be the thing to go for. Hoya makes a break-resistant filter that could also be used, but I have seen no testing done for its coating performance.

SkipD, are you speaking from experience here? I shoot paintball tournaments and always use a UV filter. I've been hit on the lens, some direct, some indirect many times and not one single time did the filter glass break. I just switched filters for a new clean one and was ready for more shooting. It would have taken me a long time to clean the paint off the lens if I had no filter, basically causing me to miss much of the game.

I am interested in your experience with paintballs breaking your filters, or are you just speculating here.

I used to put filters on all my lenses the day I bought them. I would not use a new lens until a protective filter was in place. This was back in the day when I could only afford the cheapest of lenses. After many debates over the years, I decided the money for 'good' filters could be better spent elsewhere and I only use the shades which are virtually always on my lens.

And yes, I would always use a filter when near salt water.

B+W mrc filters rock!!!! I hate my hoya and kenko's due to the smear you get when you clean the lens. B+W filters clean so well with no irritating rainbow swirls.

I always use lens hoods with my filters. The only lens I do not use a filter is the 100-400L (worst iq out of all of my lenses)

Eagle wrote in post #14671206
Unless your filters were coated with oil or mud, care to explain how they can effect focus? ...

The 100-400mm lens is a well known lens for filter quality tests
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1199661
On longer focal lengths the flatness of the filter surface has to be very good. Otherwise MTF (Modulation Transfer Function = sharpness contrast measuremend) goes down.
Bad MTF = bad contrast => bad AF function.
On this lens users see sometimes structures in the bokeh and such, very funny.

What is very good flatness? Something about 1/4 to 1 wavelength of the light!
In photography this seems to be completly unknown. And consumer (all photography) filters seems to have more like 10 ore more wavelenghts filter flatness difference.
No one cares.
In industry most filters have specified flatness. Astronomers with their long focal lengths use filters with 1/10 Lambda flatness.

http://www.vision-systems.com …into-optical-imaging.html

I work at a camera manufacturer as optics engineer and it is part of my job to specify and test filters. We buy many thousands of filters which are build to our demands.

Hogloff wrote in post #14671910
... I shoot paintball tournaments and always use a UV filter. I've been hit on the lens, some direct, some indirect many times and not one single time did the filter glass break...

I have no experience with paintball.
But I have opened many lenses. The front elements of lenses are somtimes really thick, 10 mm are not uncommon. But this depends on optical design of the lens. Screw in filters have normaly 2 mm thickness, probably less for ultra thins filters for wide angle lenses.
So I would suppose as an average (!) that front lenses could withstand a much higher impact before breaking. And a breaking filter could scratch the lens.

But: For your application I would still reccomend filter use.
I don´t know how viscous the paintball paint is, but some cleaning fluids like isopropanol alcohol could be sucked into the lens due to capillarity. This would be bad with this paint.

Hogloff wrote in post #14671910
SkipD, are you speaking from experience here? I shoot paintball tournaments and always use a UV filter. I've been hit on the lens, some direct, some indirect many times and not one single time did the filter glass break. I just switched filters for a new clean one and was ready for more shooting. It would have taken me a long time to clean the paint off the lens if I had no filter, basically causing me to miss much of the game.

I am interested in your experience with paintballs breaking your filters, or are you just speculating here.

I don't shoot paintball photos, but there have been folks posting here who do and have had totally smashed filters as a result. The mess included lots of tiny glass shards in the paint goo all over the lens' front element.

To me, it simply seems smart to employ the toughest material available when impact is virtually expected. Ordinary photographic filters are NOT made with impact resistance as part of their specification, but the Hoya HD filter is.

Cleaning out the filter threads from a paintball impact would be horrific, that oil is very greasy and it will eventually attack some of the materials (you have to thoroughly clean your goggles so they don't get etched and then are prone to breaking when you get hit again). I would use a filter, no question.

ZoneV wrote in post #14672393
I have no experience with paintball.
But I have opened many lenses. The front elements of lenses are somtimes really thick, 10 mm are not uncommon. But this depends on optical design of the lens. Screw in filters have normaly 2 mm thickness, probably less for ultra thins filters for wide angle lenses.
So I would suppose as an average (!) that front lenses could withstand a much higher impact before breaking. And a breaking filter could scratch the lens.

But: For your application I would still reccomend filter use.
I don´t know how viscous the paintball paint is, but some cleaning fluids like isopropanol alcohol could be sucked into the lens due to capillarity. This would be bad with this paint.

I'm not concerned about breaking the front element. I am concerned about damaging it while cleaning. Paintball goo is very tough to clean and I would think not very good for the lens components in the long run. Fine sand is a pain to deal with when cleaning a lens. Just one piece left on the glass when cleaning with a cloth will cause a scratch. Small rocks kicked up during a rodeo or bike race will scratch the lens. It is in these potentially harmful environment that I use a UV filter to help protect the front element. I know over the years I have saved some of my lenses from front element damage, there is no question. Have my photos suffered image quality loss, my clients don't think so.

I'll say this again a very good friend of mine had a very expensive UV filter on the front of a very expensive Hasselblad lens that he bumped into a metal hand rail and the filter completely shatter under moderate impact and those shards were all embedded in the front element. A front elemtn is curved and much stronger than any filter and I've seen filter shatter from just moderate shock from the sides (by the treads threads) that would never damage a front element and those shards can really scratch the crap out of a front element when you go to clean them off. I would think that glass shards mixed in with goo would really be a problem.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #14673185
I'll say this again a very good friend of mine had a very expensive UV filter on the front of a very expensive Hasselblad lens that he bumped into a metal hand rail and the filter completely shatter under moderate impact and those shards were all embedded in the front element. A front elemtn is curved and much stronger than any filter and I've seen filter shatter from just moderate shock from the sides (by the treads threads) that would never damage a front element and those shards can really scratch the crap out of a front element when you go to clean them off. I would think that glass shards mixed in with goo would really be a problem.

I've never broken a filter in my 30 years of use. We all hear about this on the Internet and think it is a common occurrence. Not in my experience. Now I know for a fact the UV filter has saved at the very least endless hours of cleaning and most likely scratches from fine sand.

I don't use UV filters, since I never shoot in an environment where they could be advisable to use (i.e. beaches and the like). Lens hoods offer much better protection, at least for telephoto lenses.

Hogloff wrote in post #14673233
I've never broken a filter in my 30 years of use. We all hear about this on the Internet and think it is a common occurrence. Not in my experience. Now I know for a fact the UV filter has saved at the very least endless hours of cleaning and most likely scratches from fine sand.

Yep. Those UV filters - they never break:

https://www.google.com …ei=Adr1T8TzJ4nB​rQGDloCLCQ

Bill Ng wrote in post #14674295
Yep. Those UV filters - they never break:

https://www.google.com …ei=Adr1T8TzJ4nB​rQGDloCLCQ

I didn't say they never break...then never broke for me...that is all that counts for me. I can dig up just about anything on the internet...like this.

http://www.google.ca …CEQQsAQ&biw=192​0&bih=1083