UV filter or No UV filter?

UV is already cut out by the lens coating and the filter that's in front of the sensor.
As for protection, that's only needed with very old lenses just look at this link

The front element is very hard to scratch and even if you did you will hardly notice it on your photo, just put a corner of a post it paper on your lens and be surprised by not seeing it

The only reason I can think off to use a filter as protection is against corrosive elements that can hurt the coating, like the salt water and the sand if you're on the beach a lot of the time as an example.

here is a view on the matter by someone else. link

Rest assured that a top quality filter, whatever type you choose, will NOT affect your IQ (that's Image Quality Btw), but they are not cheap.

There's a golden rule worth following that you simply do not fit the equivalent of a beer glass on your expensive lenses. Garbage will be the result.

You suggest getting a UV. OK, well in my experience they do have merit in that they don't block much light to your lens, and also (mostly) serving as a front-of-lens cover against the elements, dust, water drops etc.

But their original and intended purpose of course is UV, filtering that out of your pics. Which in real world practice is mostly what we call "haze" in the atmosphere, most often seen over distant water masses, hills, whatever. You know, we've all seen it before and it often gets confused with smog.

I'm not a personal fan of UVs myself, but I do have and use polarizing filters, or CPLs, and love the effects they can bring.

Anyway, I'll shut up now and let others here add to the Stone Soup and hopefully you'll then be able gain all the info you need to make a wise decision in the end.

.R.

There are just a handful of filters that are strill sometimes used. The polariser, graduated filters and Infra Red filters being the most common. These are the few circumstances where it's necessary to apply the filtering at the exposure stage rather than later in Photoshop.