canon uv filter any good?

just wondering what your thoughts are on the oem canon uv filter? are they any good, better quality than other brands? I'm getting it for my 15-85mm mainly for protection.

Sort answer - no.
Long answer - really, no - they're rubbish.

Check out the sticky thread above. Here's the summary -

* No UV/'protective' filter can improve image quality on a dSLR.
* All UV/'protective' filters will cause some degradation in image quality.
* The seriousness of this degradation tends to decrease as filter cost increases.
* Good filters will cause degradation that is not noticeable under most conditions.
* All filters, even the best, will cause noticeable degradation in some conditions.

I have a Canon UV filter that came with a lens I bought used. It's not the best one, I would buy a B+W UV instead. They work great for me, easy to clean too.

i think they're just a re-branded cheaper tiffen filter. there's nothing wrong with tiffen, and i think they're even the standard in film, but every manufacturer makes a cheaper budget line of filters.

if you're going to use a protective filter (and MANY will tell you not to), get a good one. unfortunately good equates to expensive.

3 things Canon cannot seem to get right: tripods, bags, and filters.

itsmejson wrote in post #10445658
I'm getting it for my 15-85mm mainly for protection.

Get a hood instead if you haven't already - protects better than a filter and IMPROVES your image quality.

thanks for the input guys.

looks like I'll have to stick with my canon filters :/ I already purchased a 72mm one from adorama yesterday.

@wcgryphon - when I purchased the canon filter i also purchased the lens hood :P at least i got that part right lol

klr.b wrote in post #10445885
i think they're just a re-branded cheaper tiffen filter. there's nothing wrong with tiffen, and i think they're even the standard in film,.

What is wrong with Tiffen can be seen here...

Back on the old Rob Galbraith forum, Chuck Westfall (Canon USA director of technical media communications) stated (very politically) that the filters branded and sold by Canon USA were not made in Japan and were "not of the same quality" as the Japanese-made Canon Inc filters sold in Japan. So that's what the horse had to say about the race.

In my experience, I would rank filters in this way from best to worst: Zeiss, B+W and Heliopan, Nikon, high-end Hoya, Canon, everything else.

I strongly agree that for protective purposes, a hood is the first best protection in all situations, and a filter provides extra protection in specific situations when the atmosphere has actual bravo-sierra flying around (like ringside at a rodeo).

Wilt wrote in post #10450104
What is wrong with Tiffen can be seen here...

actually, what i meant by that statement was that i don't think there's anything wrong with tiffen as a company. they're one of the oldest manufacturers of filters. however, every company makes a cheaper budget line. a cheaper filter usually means uncoated or at the most single coated. the results would probably be similar if you compared the tiffen to a hoya green box filter.

i've never bought any of the expensive tiffen filters, but i'd like to see how they compare to the higher line of hoyas.

Nooooooo. Stick with B&W and Hoya Pro 1. Always multicoated.

klr.b wrote in post #10450313
i've never bought any of the expensive tiffen filters, but i'd like to see how they compare to the higher line of hoyas.

The 'high quality' filters from Tiffen are a somewhat recently introduced offering, I guess they did that because their name was not associated with high quality, but they had rested on their old motion picture usage laurels from 50 years ago. Recent tests by lenstip.com did not include the new line of Tiffen but tested only the old line not held in high regard, and they were at the bottom of the ranking.

rklepper wrote in post #10446347
3 things Canon cannot seem to get right: tripods, bags, and filters.

and controllable ISO adjustment.