wanted: filters!

hello,

i am tired of waiting for auctions to end on ebay...(especially since there is no consistency it drives me mad!). Anyway I am after 77mm filters:

- UV (a good one) or skylight 1a / it's mainly to protect my baby
- CPL (a good one too )
- ND (whatever, i have never used them before but would like to see the effect, read somewhere they dont make much sense on wide angle lenses so not sure i'll keep it!?).

If anyone's got a spare one from an old lens i would be happy to buy it for a decent price.
thanks!

have any of you used the Hama UV filters?

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=5966

very very cheap; as protection filter it seems fine right?
thanks!

I'd avoid putting anything from the hama house of horrors on your lens! Always replace the lens cap and gees the hood on, and pack your camera bag carefully and you shouldn't need a protective filter.

I recently got a Hoya 77mm Pro 1 Digital Protector Filter for £20.99 from CameraKing UK. It doesn't do anything except protect the front of the lens. They normally seem to go for about £35 so I think it's a reasonable deal. It gets good reviews too. The merits of filters have been debated before here, but personally I'd rather scratch a filter than a lens. And I'm speaking from experience.

After many years of buying quality filters (UV, Skylight or 'protection') (Hoya/Kenko Pro-1 series, Sigma EX DG series) for all of my lenses, and having become increasingly aware of the controversy that rages regarding their use, I decided to try the photographic equivalent of 'going commando'

Bit nerve wracking to begin with, I have to admit, but soon got used to it and as I always use a lens hood I didn't feel I was venturing out totally unprotected.

I can't pretend that any effect was immediately apparent or marked (possibly because I had been using very high quality filters to start with), but over time I began to notice that many of my captures had more 'bite' and deeper, richer colours. The magnitude of the effect was dependent on the lens used and the level and quality of ambient lighting, with the most noticeable improvement under most conditions being evident in images captured using my Sigma 70-300mm APO DG.

Having a scientific background, I was tempted to do some objective testing, but quickly realised that this would be incredibly tedious and wholly impractical, unless conducted under controlled lighting conditions that would bear little relation to those normally encountered in the field.

To summarise: in my experience not using an high quality lens filter has no determental effect and may, depending on the lens in use and lighting conditions, result in more or less noticeable improvements in image quality.

Henceforth I will no longer be purchasing 'standard' filters for my lenses. Those that I have already purchased will be kept and used only under conditions where there is real risk of front element contamination (e.g. sea spray and/or wind driven sand). I will however, continue to buy the best quality polarisers that I can afford.

Hope this helps you save time, money and angst

Best wishes,

Jon

don't know how to move this thread to the lens discussion forum (or however it's called).

i think the main question is: will a £5 uv filter affect negatively the quality of a shot?

i have used my 10-20mm without a filter this week end (brand new lens so first time out), was a bit worried to damage it which is a strange feeling (also because it's new and i'm not used to having a £400 lens in my hand). but still feel like a uv filter could be a good idea..

will keep looking on ebay try to find a pro1 uv for under £10 (good luck me), as it will protect the lens and shouldnt affect the quality (might improve it in bright light)

thanks for your advice/comments

Discussion moved.

The better filters have an anti-reflection coating, similar to the Pentax SMC lens coating. Cheap filters do not have this coating and can cause increased flare and ghosting.

You mentioned getting a good quality 77mm circ polariser - something I've just been looking for too, and which can cost a small fortune if you're not careful. I found a comparison test of circular polarisers on the Lenstip website, which made very interesting reading.

link

As a result, I bought the Marumi DHG from Optics Warehouse on Ebay, cost £51.

I've always been happy with Marumi filters in the past (they make some great close up filters too), and so far this one appears to be no exception - I'm very happy with it.

The question should be, why would I potentially compromise the IQ of a £1000.00 lens with a £5.00 piece of glass?

I can't think of a good reason.

A £5 maybe but when you get to the £70 UV or protector the view has to be different. Taking a simplistic view without considering development costs, volumes and mark-ups.

A £1000 zoom lens will contain say 10 elements plus barrel, mount, motor, contacts, controls, aperture blades &c. Take 80% of the value for the glass and each element is worth about £80 - so the filter is worth about the same as a single lens element.

Throwing a few more points into the equation. Take the lens development costs off, the dealer mark ups - on a lens will be a greater percentage than a filter as greater volumes are sold, and the relative production costs for a large number of filters compared with a lens element run and the situation changes again - maybe a £40 to £50 filter is "as good as" an expensive lens.

Just a thought. My Tokina 80-400 was frustratingly soft, so I removed the Hoya filter one night to find the inside surface rather cloudy. On cleaning and replacing the filter, the results were better. The lens is still a bit soft, though.
Regards

Hi Sam - have you tried it without the filter at all to see if that makes a difference? I also have the Tokina 80-400 (ATXii) and only find it too soft at the longest length coupled with widest apertures. Keep it just off 400mm and stopped down to at least f8 and it does pretty well.

I'll give it a go. The problem is, I've bought that lens primarily for photographing my kid's soccer matches, therefore I regularly need to get close to the 400 mark, and at the wider apertures, to avoid too much movement. Mine is the series 1 version.
Regards

Difficult one - using it at full tele and wide open is not a strong point for this lens - or any tele-zoom. In fact, I reckon that if you use it closer to 300mm and then crop on the computer, you may find the results are significantly superior to shooting at 400mm! I compared my copy with the 55-300, and at 300mm wide open, the Tokina was easily sharper so it does give some "cropping room". Will stop posting in this thread now as wandering off the original topic.....