The deal with filters..... get the best Multi-coated ones... this to me means 80USD+ B&W MRC ones... .for my 24-70L and 70-200/2.8L IS, the rest of my lens line up pretty much go commando...
If you are using a 1000+ lens, you should protect it with some filter esp if you are shooting PJ stuff...
The only lens in my lineup I give special care to is my 85/1.2L... it is naked but I leave it as it is because the hood is nice and deep!
No matter how good the filter is it will produces flares almost 100% of the times if light source is in the frame. Been there, done that with Hoya Super-HMC Pro-1 UV. Sold them all.
I used to use filters but now I'm firmly in the naked lens camp. With a good solid hood I'm not really worried about impact damage. I still have some filters for bad conditions but other than that, they're in the bag.
The front elements of most lenses are much harder than people give them credit for.
Echoing the majority of the sentiment here, I put protective filters (Hoya S-HMC) on my lenses only under harsh shooting environments. Otherwise, I like'm naked
Okay, so is anyone going to post with/without 100% crops and show us what difference their (high-quality) filter makes? Not that I don't believe in it, but can we see how dramatic the difference is?
grendel wrote:
Okay, so is anyone going to post with/without 100% crops and show us what difference their (high-quality) filter makes? Not that I don't believe in it, but can we see how dramatic the difference is?
Nobody at any stage has said the difference is 'dramatic'. The difference is subtle and infinitely variable depending on light position and quality, aperture and lens used, condition and quality and coating of filter and many other factors.
If you want to use a filter ro protect your lens then do. I'm a working pro and I've found I don't use them for all the reasons I've already stated, feel free to disregard this is you like.
Canon touts its new coating in the newly introduced 85mm f/1.2L as being able to markedly reduce flare, which results in better image contrast in unusual lighting situations. Do you feel like putting a filter on that lens? I wouldn't if I had that lens .
AGeoJO wrote:
Canon touts its new coating in the newly introduced 85mm f/1.2L as being able to markedly reduce flare, which results in better image contrast in unusual lighting situations. Do you feel like putting a filter on that lens? I wouldn't if I had that lens .
I have new Pentax lenses in my specs which have a new multi-coat and it really is brilliant, much less flare than my old Zeiss ones. Technology does march on
Camera & lens insurance makes a good protection filter and it doesn't affect image quality. But to prevent 'normal wear and tear' on the front element I do use a quality coated filter when conditions warrant it - blowing sand, rain or mammals with grungy and investigating fingers and tongues.
I prefer to go naked - my eyes I need all the IQ I can get ;-)
I don't know as some have already said, why put an extra piece of glass in front of your precisly designed multi hundred $ Canon glass..
So for all the people who put Hoya/B+W, thats exactly what you're doing. Thats why I use a Canon filter on all my L glass. No crappy third party stuff for me, only Canon brand name designed by Canon engineers.
Seriously, unless someone can tell which pic was shot with or without a filter, I'm keepign my filters on.. For all the people who bitch about the lens sharpness threads, the filter threads are even more silly.
Just try it, take the same picture with and without a filter, and try to tell which had a filter on... Good luck!
If you took the same pic, one with filter, one without, you'd have to pixel peep until to be able to find minute differences, and thats IF you managed to find some...
inMtl wrote:
Just try it, take the same picture with and without a filter, and try to tell which had a filter on... Good luck!
I did it many times with top of the line filters. Try it youself: take a picture of birthday cake with candle lit on it and you will always see a "second set" of candle lights somewhere in the frame.
My grandparents went through that phase of covering their sofas in plastic 'to protect them'. They even did it to the uplolstry in thier '66 Cadilac DeVille. Obvioulsy, anything as expensive should be protected for posterity from the elements and mishaps. Grandpa was very happy and content sitting on his plastic protected world. Noone dared suggest that he wasnt fully enjoying the comfort and luxury his furnishings accorded. The security those plastic covers provided just made sense to him and you knew not to challenge that notion. Grandpa was going to enjoy his things the way he wanted to.
Maybe all of that stuff lasted longer or improved re-sale value, but I hated the red triangular dimples those plastic covers in the caddy embossed on my face when I fell asleep in the back on road trips.
According to Canon themselves, a flat filter will cause extra flare and spurious reflections under high flare conditions on DLSRs. They illustrate two circumstances in Lens Work II, and they say that is why they use miniscus lens elements instead of flat elements as protective front elements for their super telephoto lenses.
So for all the people who put Hoya/B+W, thats exactly what you're doing. Thats why I use a Canon filter on all my L glass. No crappy third party stuff for me, only Canon brand name designed by Canon engineers.
Seriously, unless someone can tell which pic was shot with or without a filter, I'm keepign my filters on.. For all the people who bitch about the lens sharpness threads, the filter threads are even more silly...
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but according to Chuck Westfall on the Rob Galbraith forum, the "Canon" filters sold in the US and Canada are not made by Canon, but by Tiffen...and he suggests that their low cost compared to Japanese-made filters is indicative of their level of quality.
Vole wrote:
Canon should make their front elements easily-removable and have them available to buy off-the-shelf as replacement parts for around the same cost as a good filter. Problem solved.
Not practical. If you look at lens diagrams you will see that many front elements are in intimate contact with the next element. Imagine the problems with dust trapped there as you screw the element on (think circular scratches). If you had some kind of latching system, it would make the lenses more complex and heavier. Furthermore, it would introduce alignment problems.
Al_10D wrote:
I did it many times with top of the line filters. Try it youself: take a picture of birthday cake with candle lit on it and you will always see a "second set" of candle lights somewhere in the frame.
That is similar to the example Canon shows in "Lens Work III."
RDKirk wrote:
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but according to Chuck Westfall on the Rob Galbraith forum, the "Canon" filters sold in the US and Canada are not made by Canon, but by Tiffen...and he suggests that their low cost compared to Japanese-made filters is indicative of their level of quality.
This is consistent with test results showing the Canon filters scoring about the same level as Tiffen filters.
A frequent writer here, Hrow, posted a thread that seems to have disappeared from the archive, about a case where a high quality filter by a high quality manufacturer grossly degraded the image of a high quality Canon lens and also a high quality Nikon lens. It is possible that it was a manufacturing defect, but the principle remains: Modern lenses and coatings are quite durable. Lens hoods offer better protection from damage (filter shatter into lens scratching shards) and image protection from flare. Thus there is nothing to gain from keeping extra glass on there all the time, and much to lose. I use UV filters only in hazardous conditions.
Complete waste of money on Nikon 17-55mm F2.8 and 85mm F1.4 lens.
These pro's posting in this thread know what they are talking about. These filters degrade image quality far more then they add
And protection? Blah, use a hood. Never scratched a front element in 22 years of photography. Nor has my father or his father before him or any of their friends or their friends friends.
