Why I really feel no need for the protective filter

KirkS- I understand your intentions, i personally have a uv filter on my 85 1.8 and am sometimes glad to have something protecting my investment of a lens. it helped me with dusty, dirty environments. I haven't noticed a significant change in IQ, although some argue differently.

Everyone shoots in different situations in different environments with different levels of care for their respective gear.

IMO it's like having insurance for the front element of the lens. it might not save it in a bad situation but it'll try it's best to protect it.

aximrocks wrote in post #16823319
try again with a $1500 Canon fisheye. tell us how you really feel.

Based on my 35+ years using canon lenses, I'd feel more confident.

Invertalon wrote in post #16823343
I personally don't see why people worry so much about what others do.

Given my experience, no matter how careful you are... Scratching the front element is easier than most people think. Maybe not into the glass exactly, but the coatings certainly.

The decision to use or not use filters have no impact on someone else. So why people get personal about it is beyond me. Who, really, cares?

Just to throw it in there, I use them with no issues. I like them for the care-free cleaning I can do when required. I had a loaner 8-15L from Canon that I cleaned the front element once with a lenspen (using bulb blower first, brush, bulb blower again and then lenspen) and the coating was marred. Coatings are not as robust as people think. I have some blemishes on my Hoya HD filters as well from careful cleaning… They look perfect in normal light, but if you shine a powerful light at proper angles you see everything.

I think it is more based on people being told they need it and retailers make a big profits on them. I figure most will agree a high quality filter will have no effect on sharpness that a human can detect I think, but I agree it can effect contrast and flaring so it is an each to his own thing.

There was a thread about a person trying to sell a lens with a scratched front element. Had to bite my tongue on that one even when I knew it is a very rare occurrence. I really did want to say - see!

A good link that I think I found here.

http://lensblogger.typ​epad.com …08/03/the-myth-of-uv.html

One line from that post.

Very good multicoated filters have little (not none, little) effect on image quality, but a good 77mm filter will run $70-90 dollars.

I use Hoya HD's on all my lenses (minus the 300 II) and at times I have taken them off for a few weeks and saw absolutely no difference. Even when I was having flare issues for example, removing the filter did nothing with the flare. When checking resolution with and without filters, I have yet to see any difference.

If you buy good filters, you will be OK. If I personally saw *any* difference, I would have taken them off for good. But since I have not, I prefer the ease of cleaning and not having to worry about the front elements.

Reading all the posts from the years I have started to take them off for important events. Not sure how much difference it makes.

For my hobby work and when I travel and do the walk wound thing they stay on. I already own them. If the day is clear I have a polarizer on my walk around lens on all the time anyway. Personally I see so little flair I never think about it.

POTN members have made me think about the effect on contrast so I am doing some searches from time to time. I would hate to be effecting that and is the main reason I take them off for important events. I have yet to do a battery of tests to see for myself.

I can tell you from personal experience that I have tested it very carefully, and aside from a minuscule amount of exposure difference (filter reduces it a hair), nothing else looked any different. Colors, contrast, sharpness, etc...

This is interesting.

The folks that don't use filters tend to test the durability of the lens itself, and the filter users test the affect their filters have/have not on their images.

For me, it's just a case of years without them, and never an issue, and I can use the funds elsewhere. And a small part of me feels the prices that are charged for them is an insult. I'm not ok with 500-1000% mark-ups.

KirkS518 wrote in post #16823621
This is interesting.

The folks that don't use filters tend to test the durability of the lens itself, and the filter users test the affect their filters have/have not on their images.

For me, it's just a case of years without them, and never an issue, and I can use the funds elsewhere. And a small part of me feels the prices that are charged for them is an insult. I'm not ok with 500-1000% mark-ups.

It is interesting. I think the main argument is the high end ones are overpriced at the retail level. Not sure what the manufacturing costs are. If good high end B+W filters were $25 would more people use them? If I was starting again would I get them now? 10 years ago when I worked $200 was not that much to me. Now with a fixed income I had a hard time pressing the buy button for a new 82mm polarizer last week. I did think about where else could I use that money.

I'm around little kids with sticky fingers and dogs with licky tongues, I'll keep my filters on. Easy clean with my t-shirt, I don't usually carry lens pens or lens cleaning rags with me. Some insist they create flare, I have yet to see that happen in 40 years of use. I often have the sun in my photos, full frontal, off to the side, etc. I can take the filter off and wash it in the sink with soap if necessary, can't do that with the front element quite as easily. Nor would I if it were, LOL

I bought all my filters from max-saver, which saved me big money over Amazon, Adorama, B&H, etc... So what is another $50 on a $2000 lens?

Invertalon wrote in post #16823724
...So what is another $50 on a $2000 lens?

+1 Or $100 for that matter...

I don't know why this always devolves into an either-or discussion. Sometimes they'll make sense, sometimes they won't. I can list at least a dozen contributing factors and only a handful are objective. If you think it makes sense for you to use one, you're probably right, almost by definition. What difference what anyone else thinks?

KnightRT wrote in post #16823831
I don't know why this always devolves into an either-or discussion. Sometimes they'll make sense, sometimes they won't. I can list at least a dozen contributing factors and only a handful are objective. If you think it makes sense for you to use one, you're probably right, almost by definition. What difference what anyone else thinks?

cha-ching!

exactly what I was going to say. Sometimes i use them, sometimes i don't.

Invertalon wrote in post #16823724
. So what is another $50 on a $2000 lens?

MakisM1 wrote in post #16823757
+1 Or $100 for that matter...

Looked at that way .... not a lot. One filter on one lens.

However, that $50 (or $100) starts to mount up if you have several lenses, I have 8 so that would be a few hundred dollars to "protect" them all, and the "$2,000 lens" is also misleading as you aren't protecting a $2,000 lens, you are protecting a front element that can be replaced for around $200.

So, in my case, I can easily see the point KirkS518 is making about the cost / benefit balance. It would cost me around twice as much to fit filters to my lenses as it would to replace a front element should the worst happen.

Like KirkS518, I have been shooting with SLR cameras for over 35 years, without using filters other than a CPL on occasion when required, or perhaps a GND, most of the times the lenses had no filter on. In all that time I have never managed to damage an element either, and I shoot in many adverse environments such as rallying, dirttrack racing etc., where muck and small stones are flung at the camera.

I have managed to drop and dent a few lenses, and they certainly get banged about enough that I would break filters from time to time (adding to the expense if I kept replacing them) but the front elements keep on surviving without a mark or any wear to the coatings.

The way I see it, I would already be down a lens if I had used filters, as the money would have gone into filters that could have bought the lens instead. So the risk of being without one for a couple of weeks while a new element is fitted is well worth taking, for me. I see it as spending several hundred pounds on insurance, to avoid the possibility that one day I may have to pay a couple of hundred in repairs. It just doesn't make economic sense. In addition, I have seen a lens scratched by the shards of glass from a filter, that was broken in a situation where the lens would have been fine without it.

I just see a lot of expense for something that is unlikely to save the lens from damage and may possible cause it to be damaged.

But, everybody can weigh up the pros and cons differently, I really don't care whether others choose to use filters or not, it makes no difference to me. If somebody only has a couple of lenses then the cost is lower and if they feel better protected then great.

Or, you can see it like this...

If you look at just the front element cost alone, sure, it will be less... However, I am sure Canon is charging $300+ for front elements these days with labor/repair rates. Even so, you are looking at maybe 25% of the cost of the element as "insurance". Not including shipping/insurance costs to Canon, which adds another $30-40.

Either way, people will either have them or not, and there really is no "better"