Protection Filters

Some folks are belts'n'braces. Like the horrid and completely useless practice of sticking plastic film over your LCD and GORILLA GLASS smartphone screen.

Not questioning ones perspective, but... Would ones filter use change if the lens were an ultra rare one such as... A Schneider t/s 28mm, any Zeiss lens for PK, or (although not yet in PK, and wishing it was) A Leica f0.95 ?

I only ever use NDs, ND grads and polarizers.

Not in the slightest. Why ruin a perfectly fine lens with a cheaper piece of glass?

This is not exactly true, but not entirely false.

In some case, like high altitude or snow scene, a good U.V. filter is a must to "kill" the excess blue that will appear in the picture.

It is a lot easier to put a good U.V. filter on the lenses in such instance then trying to get rid of the blue cast in shadows in post production.

My understanding is that it's less to do with modern lenses but more to do with film v digital sensor.
UV filters were developed for film because with old film cameras it was often necessary to use a UV filter as film is extremely sensitive to UV light. But digital sensors are much less sensitive to UV, in any case manufacturers actually add UV and IR filters to the sensor.

I now know who I bought most of my lenses from

50mpcmos wrote:

If you had a lens like this, why use UV filter. No matter what, any filter adds a glass surface to the front of the lens, no matter how good it is, compared to nothing, it has some detrimental affect.

It will reflect and stray some light rays . Also any element of a lens assy is made and matched just for this one lens, A filter however, has to fit any lens. This has to have some disadvantages.
Better to use the longest lens hood the lens will accept.
Don't forget, with APS-c you can use a longer lens hood then with FF for the same lens.
I can not see, how a filter can offer more protection than a lens hood.

The only exception should be special effects filters. They by definition change the properties of the lens somewhat.
Regards, Horst

Smeggy wrote:

Same here.

Actually, some sensors are more sensitive to U.V. light than films.
U.V. filters in front of the sensor are there for "normal" U.V. levels, not for high altitude or snowy scenery levels.

Are you a camera / electronics engineer?
I'm no expert, so I only ask as my research consistently informs me differently.

Following up my interest in infra red photography, I've searched out spectra for camera hot mirrors. All of them are very effective at blocking UV. The k100d hot mirror (known to be a weak type for IR) is one of the most transparent to UV but even that reduces intensity significantly. Sensor design can also affect UV sensitivity, according to some sources I've read the maximum sensitivity is a function of the silicon thickness. Cameras for normal use are normally set for maximum sensitivity in the green region to mimic our eyes.
Even with a full spectrum converted camera I've found it remarkably difficult to capture UV images (I do have suitable filters).

Film is inherently sensitive to UV - UV being more energetic than visual light.

I can also assure you that modern lenses typically block significantly more UV than just the amount of glass wound suggest. I've measured the Transmission spectra of a range of my lenses using the research spectrometer at work. The older non coated lenses transmit much more than even quite small modern lenses.

Can you provide any data to back up your claim?

It's unlikely that on older lenses that a UV Filter wouldn't have been taken into account at the time of the lens design.

Some lenses such as the Tamron 500mm f/8 CAT show a big improvement in sharpness with the correct Tamron 82mm front filter see ........
http://forum.fourthirdsphoto.com/threads/18954-Tamron-SP-500mm-f8-0

Also quote from another post in that thread........
"FWIW, my Tokina AT-X 300/2.8 is equipped with a 112 mm front filter that was supplied with the lens when it once was new. In the manual for the lens it specifically says that the front (and rear) filters should be mounted at all times for best performance."

The Tiffen Haze -1 certainly improves contrast and sharpness on distant views.

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Certainly a lot has changed in 9+ years.