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Archive 2017 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

PrecisionPhoto
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Do you use filters on your lenses or fell there degrade the IQ of your work
Or do you use specialty filters on occasion?

Jun 04, 2017 at 11:16 AM

jcolwell
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

I occasionally use CP and ND filters, and I use clear (or UV) filters for protection when shooting in a hostile environment, like at the beach on a windy day. Otherwise, I don't use protective filters, not even for paintball tournaments.

Jun 04, 2017 at 11:26 AM

sjms
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

since just about everything i do can be classified as a "hostile environment" they are there. i rate them as semi-consumables like memory cards.

Jun 04, 2017 at 11:35 AM

Todd Warnke
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

JC has it right.

Jun 04, 2017 at 12:48 PM

c.d.embrey
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Sometimes I'll use double fogs, black promist, white promist, silk stockings stretched across either the front or the back of a lens.

I do this to take the edge off of overly sharp (high IQ) lenses. There is a big difference between shooting test-charts, and making a portrait of a thirty-somthing woman. YMMV.

Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." No-one has ever accused me of having a bourgeois attitude

Jun 04, 2017 at 03:37 PM

Two23
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

jcolwell wrote:
I occasionally use CP and ND filters, and I use clear (or UV) filters for protection when shooting in a hostile environment, like at the beach on a windy day. Otherwise, I don't use protective filters, not even for paintball tournaments.

Same here. For daytime shots I'm a polarizer "addict." Also use ND filters but only when shooting large format and lenses that don't have shutters. Never use a UV filter because modern cameras really don't need them. Don't use "protective" filters unless in conditions with a LOT of grit such as waterfall spray. The only time I had a lens element get scratched was when a filter broke and a broken edge of the filter scratched the hell out of glass element. I see filters as a hazard as they do break very easily. When I buy a lens on ebay that comes with a filter on it, I immediately throw the filter away before it can hurt anything.

Kent in SD

Jun 04, 2017 at 09:09 PM

retrofocus
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Option 3:

UV filters: only use them on lenses for color film shooting or in dusty/sandy beach environments
Circ. Polarizer: often used for landscape photography
ND Filter: sometimes used in either very sunny/bright situations to slow down exposure time (film) or to get to slower exposure time for waterfalls or smooth water reflections
Graduated ND filters: no longer use them on my newest digital camera (A7R)
Yellow filter: often used for B&W film photography especially with foliage/grass
Red filter: sometimes used to increase contrast with B&W film for sky
Green filter: very rarely used for B&W film portrait photography
IR filter (720 nm cutoff): used for IR film photography

Jun 05, 2017 at 09:48 AM

ZoneV
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

I love filters!
Optical filters are a quite large part of my life!

I use them, I clean them, I test them, I write about them, I teach about them, I talk to their manufacturer and I specify them. Thats part of my work at a camera manufacturer.

For my photography hobby, I use rarely extra filters. I use polarizers, IR transmission filters, UV transmission filters, some UV-cut filters too.

Jun 09, 2017 at 07:21 AM

Paul Mo
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Coming from a documentary background, where your camera is exposed to all manner of fluids and muck, I was an avid protective filter user.

Now, not so much. I find it depends on the lens (whether or not it plays well with filters), the lens' use, and to a degree deciding whether or not the lens hood is sufficient.

So, yes and no. I have no use for specialty filters - just plain old protection with very, very rare use of a circular polariser.

Jun 09, 2017 at 07:35 AM

CMYK Designs
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

I'm a UV or NC front filter guy. I only use high quality glass filters (Nikon, B-W, Etc.)....Has one ever saved a front element from impact damage? maybe once in the last 25 years. Has it ever degraded an image? Not that I know of, and with thousands of photos taken, displayed and appreciated, not once did anyone ever say, "Nice shot, but that would have looked better if you had no front filter on the lens"....Will I ever stop using them? Nope.

Jun 09, 2017 at 08:20 AM

PrecisionPhoto
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

This guys seems to thinks you hardly ever need filters

https://youtu.be/YcZkCnPs45s

Jun 09, 2017 at 09:30 AM

Imagemaster
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Never use them.

And why would I use a blur filter when I can apply so many degrees of blur with post-processing filters?
Plus with PP blur filters I can selectively blur any portion of the image.

An image that has been blurred in-camera is permanently blurred. One blurred in PP can always be reversed.

Same can be said about some other filters.

Jun 09, 2017 at 11:46 PM

shutterbug guy
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Imagemaster wrote:
Never use them.

And why would I use a blur filter when I can apply so many degrees of blur with post-processing filters?
Plus with PP blur filters I can selectively blur any portion of the image.

An image that has been blurred in-camera is permanently blurred. One blurred in PP can always be reversed.

Same can be said about some other filters.

Just curious, what other filters?

Jun 10, 2017 at 07:03 AM

JBPhotog
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

+1 What JC said.

Think of a clear filter like a seat belt, not needed when backing out of the garage to park in your driveway but worth while when on the freeway.

Jun 10, 2017 at 01:30 PM

mogud
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

Don't use UV or protection filters ever. Use a CPL and ND filters and a black filter when the camera is not in use.

Jun 10, 2017 at 11:28 PM

PrecisionPhoto
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

mogud wrote:
Don't use UV or protection filters ever. Use a CPL and ND filters and a black filter when the camera is not in use.

A black filter? you mean a lens cap

Jun 10, 2017 at 11:34 PM

EB-1
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

mogud wrote:
Don't use UV or protection filters ever. Use a CPL and ND filters and a black filter when the camera is not in use.

The polarizer has two glass filters and one film. What is the rationale for accepting 6 glass-air surfaces, yet one glass filter with two surfaces is not ever to be used

EBH

Jun 10, 2017 at 11:57 PM

sorpa
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Do you use filters on your lenses?

CPL B+W for all the lenses I'm shooting with ( except a 17mm).
Occasionally ND B+W for long exposures.

Jun 11, 2017 at 11:38 AM


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