lens care

Hi everyone again i would like to talk about uv /skylight filters on the front of lenses is it really necessary? are we all just being over protective? I have a few lenses all with hoya filters on the front as you may notice from my gear i am a bit anal that way i like everything to be the same .Its just a bit annoying every time you purchase a lens you might aswell add about £30 to the final total for your lens and filter also some filters i have seen are over a £100 pounds e.g sigma hoya etc.I the glass really that much better?
Anyway thanks for listening. from sanderscapes.com

Personally I don't use filters for protection, some here feel the same way, others don't. If you're going to use them, then it makes sense to buy the best you can afford. If you have the lenshood fitted all the time, it will protect the front element of your lens from knocks and scrapes much better than a thin glass filter.

Looking at your lens list, I'm wondering why you put "Sigma EX DG 17-35mm (24-51mm on a cropped sensor)", but not "Sigma EX DC 10-20mm (15-30mm on a cropped sensor)", or "Sigma EX DG 50mm 1:1 macro (75mm on a cropped sensor)" etc. ?

And, why the Cimco convertor, why not a Sigma EX?

Dan

Hi dan the reason for the cimco teleconverter is i bought it on ebay for £7 and its mint .The reason for the 24-51mm on a cropped sensor is because dg lenses are compatible with 35mm film cameras and therefore the focal length changes on a digital sensor and the reason.I havnt done this for the macro is i havnt got around to it yet .thanks for your reply

I don't use UV filters for protection, I just make sure the hood's always attached. If I *did* use them though (and I undestand the arguments for their use even if I don't subscribe to them) I'd buy the very best ones that I could afford - it seems a bit pointless to spend a lot of money on a lens and then stick a cheap piece of glass on the front which could be detrimental to image quality.

The few filters I do have are all either B+W or Hoya, like everything else in life you get what you pay for!

Reminds me a bit of this thread.

Dan

The only filters I use are polarizers and ND grads, none for 'protection'. If I protect my lenses at all it's through careful handling and mandatory use of the lens hood.

My argument against fitting a 'protective' filter is simple. Why spend several hundred pounds on a lens which has very expensive coatings to maximise light transmission, minimise reflections, handle colour correction etc. . . . , then attach a relatively cheap piece of glass to it.

If some mishap occurs that causes a 'protective' filter to break whilst it is on a lens, imagine the damage that can be caused to your lens by flying glass.

I do put filters on the front of all my lenses, The reasons are as follows:

1) My bag isn't big enough to leave the lens hoods on permanently. Have you seen the size of the 50-135mm one? Also, the hood of the 12-24mm looks a bit fragile for that sort of treatment.
2) I am cack-handed and am always dropping things. Not the camera or lens, but cable releases, spirit levels, lens caps, tripod adaptors etc, sometimes into the bag with the rest of my kit. In over 25 years of photography never has a skylight filter broken on me.
3) I often work in filthy conditions, i.e. archaeological excavations. The dust at my present site is horrendous. Constant cleaning of dust off the front element of the lens by my uncaring staff (i.e. wiped off with an equally filthy t-shirt) would ruin the lenses in no time.

To cut down the cost, I pick up genuine Pentax UV/Skylight filters from ebay. The more savvy sellers sell the lens and the filters separately. That way I get quality for not too much cash. Doesn't help when you buy a lens on the spur of the moment from SRS which has a wopping 77mm filter size. I coughed up for the Hoya filter that time (owch) but the bulbous front element of the 12-24mm looked just too vulnerable to me to take the risk.

Cheers, Kris.

I do not use protective filters because of:

A: Cost
B: Im pretty sure putting anything in front of the lens is going to cut down on incoming light to some extent.
C: Once saw a lens after someone had dropped it and the filter smashed against the front element ... not a nice sight.

I do always put the hood on though.

I don't use filters just the lens hood.

I dare say the front element would have still looked pretty horrible had it smashed into whatever instead of the filter. Surely any bump bad enough to break the filter would leave a pretty nasty gash in the front element? It is only going to help with the more usual knocks and bumps one gets from dragging lenses in and out of a camera bag.

In reality, filters or no is entirely dependant on individual circumstances. I am cack-handed, I know it and I try and compensate for it. I work in filthy places. Other people use my kit. As a result I'll take precautions that other people find unnecessary. As with so much in life, it is "courses for horses."

Best wishes, Kris.

That's one thing I never do is lend kit out(Not Cameras or Lenses)Light stands etc maybe depending who it is.

Not much choice in my case. With three excavation trenches open (each needing three cameras) plus finds photography there is too much for me to do. That is why I have four ME Supers and a couple of Canon EOS film cameras! (The EOSs were free gifts from people who had bought digitals and couldn't be bothered to sell their film bodies). I'll admit to being much more fussy who uses my LX and my K10D.

Generally, I have always put on skylight or UV simply to protect the front element from sticky fingers and dust....

But with my recent purchases? no I haven't simply because I have noticed how on some lenses the image degrades so much I have actually questioned the lens itself.. Once I removed the filter everything was fine but I did notice that the filter had been damaged as some careless gimp had walked into me (the lens hood was off as I was shooting indorres.....

On my DA* and Ltds (and the Sigmas with the bulbuous glass on the front) I have no filter

Peter

Impossible to say but it looked bad enough to put me off using filters.
The front element reminded me of my teenage acne days .. as I said, not a pretty sight.

Some filters are made of such thin glass that they might shatter more easily than any lens element, possibly damaging the lens in the process.

The reason I've stopped using filters as protecton though is to have only one surface to keep clean instead of three.