How many people use UV filters? Filter recommendations for 70-200 f/4?

[kyle_joyce]

I'm probably going to get a 70-200 f/4 lense.

I will probably get a filter to help protect it because 550 is alot

to me.

 

Anyway how many other people use a uv filter for protection?

Also what brand and model would you recomend in the 20-50 price range?

 

Thanks

 

Kyle

[jbq]

I have filters on most of my lenses, although I sometimes remove them when there isn't much dust and the light is difficult.

 

I use Hoya super-multicoated ones.

[wolver]

You shouldn't need a UV filter for protection as the lens comes with a hood which provides good protection for the front element.

 

If you do buy a filter, both Holga and Tiffen are good and reasonably priced.

[digitmstr]

HOYA SMC or other *multi-coated* filters will work. Do not get a cheap filter for a GOOD lens :)

[tim_mcpain]

I use UV filter for only one lens (my L lens $1,500.00).<br>

I do not use any filters for the rest of the cheper lenses.<br>

<br><br>

I would buy any brand name filters at sales price.

[joe_r1]

Heliopan and B+W make excellent filters with high quality German glass and brass filter rings. Here's more info:

http://www.2filter.com/faq/facts.html

[the_macman]

A flat piece of glass is a damn flat piece of glass. Any will do, no matter what marketing

victims will tell you. By the way, ditto to those who don't recall college: UVs are stopped by

glass... coated or not. Coating is a hoax. I'm sure there must be some in there, but it's

money down the drain.

 

Save your pennies for a good brand of polarizer, for instance or any other filter which has

some coating that actually has an effect (coloured etc). There it matters.

[roy_pace]

Kyle, I would highly recommend reading Bob Atkins' article on UV filters. The URL is atttached at the end. It gives a pretty good overview of UV filters and how various filters compare. After reading this article, I would disagree with Macman that all UV filters are the same. He is correct, however, in that the lens glass itself provides some UV filtering.

 

http://www.photo.net/equipment/filters/

[Greg M]

If you are disciplined enough to take them off when you need to, otherwise, keep the lens capped when not in use and always use the hood. I've tried using filters on my 17-40L and have had problems with flare. I should have taken the time to take the hood off( not the supplied hood, the 24 1.4, deeper hood), unscrew the filter, put the hood back on, recompose, shoot, and then put the filter back on.....not. Needless to say I do not use filters now on either my 17-40L or my 70-200 f4L.

[jay_.]

This same troll gets tossed out on every photo forum periodically with the same assinine predictable responses from both sides of an issue which baffles me as to why it is so controversial. The truth is this:

 

1. Lens caps only protect the front element until you take them off.

 

2. Lens hoods only protect the front element from stray light and certain types of impact.

 

3. Salt spray and blowing sand are the two biggest reasons cited for using a UV filter but the main cause of front element damage is cleaning.

 

4. No matter how meticulous your cleaning regimen is, one little missed speck of grit can get wiped around the front element and ruin the coating.

 

5. There is no such thing as coatings so hard that this can't happen. Some people think Leica coatings are that hard, but the proliferation of used Leica lenses with "wipe marks" negates that idiotic notion.

 

6. People who swear they never use filters swear they've never gotten a wipe mark on their lenses. Yeah, right.

 

7. People who don't believe in UV filters try to shame and browbeat others into not using them also, by intimating that their images suffer from using UV filters and if they were good photographers they wouldn't use them. But the same people are the first to turn up their noses or try to haggle down the price of a used lens if it has wipe marks.

 

8. All UV filters are not created equal. B+W MRC Multi-Resistant-Coated filters are so well coated you almost can't see there's glass in them. They do *not* produce flare, they do *not* produce ghost images, they do *not* degrade image quality *at all*.

 

9. The people who try to shame you into following their daredevil practices are not going to offer to buy your lenses for full price or to pay for new front elements if you get marks on them. Dirty Harry said "What you've got to ask yourself is 'do I feel lucky?'" He could as well have been answering a forum question of whether to use UV filters.

[bill_goldman]

Jay, your response is like a breath of fresh air. I would only add that Hoya Pro 1 thin, super multicoated filters will give B+W MRC filters a run for their money. Their ultra thin aluminum mounts add negligible weight. Also, I prefer the slightly warmer Skylight filter to the yellowish UV, expecially since UV is not a problem with digital cameras.

[shaun westlake]

Have both Hoyo Pro and a B+W MRC filters. IMHO I find the B+W easier to clean.

 

PS Everything Jay said

[peteraitch]

Bill,

 

I second your comment about Hoya Pro-1 filters. I only have one and keep it on my wide-angle zoom (77mm thread). When it's perfectly clean and if looking into the front of the lens it IS invisible!

 

As someone who used to work in optoelectronics, I'm conversant with the theory behind this, but seeing it (or, rather, NOT seeing it) is mightily impressive.

 

I'm "making do" with ordinary Hoya filters on my other lenses, but the difference is clearly visible. Of course, flare excepted, whether coatings are photographically significant is another matter. Personally, I don't think the difference justifies the additional investment. Then again, I'm an amateur on a strict budget and I don't make prints the size of my walls. Mind you, I'm having to live with a 28-105 zoom which vignettes slightly at the wide end...

[joe_fikes]

MACMAN's statements are incorrect. I don't know what he might have learned in college, but he certainly didn't learn anything about optical physics. (That's how I've made my living for the last 35 years or so).

 

In the first place, plain glass doesn't suddenly go opaque as the wavelength of light goes from blue into the UV. Its transmission diminishes more or less gradually as you go further into the UV. For example, the transmission of BK-7 (a common optical glass) is greater than 50% at 320 nanometers (nm), whereas the response of the human eye is down to about 1% at 400 nm. SHORT wavelength UV is effectively stopped by plain glass, but, as the example shows, LONG wavelength UV is not. The long UV registers on color film as blue, so certain scenes with lots of UV appear overly blue.

 

Second, the coating has nothing to do with the UV blocking or (in almost all cases) any of the color modifying properties of all the other filters we use in photography. Instead, it reduces the reflections off the glass. Uncoated glass reflects about 4% per surface. It's usually not a big deal to lose 8% of the incident light, but reflections contribute to flare. A single layer of MgF is good. Multiple layers (multicoating) is better. Coating is not a hoax. If you like sharpness and contrast, you'll benefit from multicoated filters when the lighting gets tough.

 

Third, the flatness of the surfaces is important. No optical surface is perfectly flat, but it's worthwhile taking the effort to make the surfaces as flat as is economically feasible, because that results in the least loss of sharpness. The smoothness matters because scratches and digs (this terminology is used in the technical sense, look it up if you're curious) diminish the contrast of the image. It takes more care and better equipment to make really flat, smooth surfaces than it does to make ordinary surfaces.

 

While high-quality filters perform better than low quality filters, you probably won't notice the difference in many (or most) pictures. But even MACMAN will in some.

 

Finally, I think it's worthwhile to use a UV filter to protect the lens, no matter what kind of hood you might use. It keeps dust, water/spray, fingers, and all sorts of other bad things off the front surface of your lens.

[the_macman]

Of course all this is true... if you shoot facing the sun. I'm talking about practical

photography.

 

BTW, no need to yell.

[mike sisk]

<blockquote><em>

 

B+W MRC Multi-Resistant-Coated filters are so well coated you almost can't see there's

glass in them. They do *not* produce flare, they do *not* produce ghost images, they do

*not* degrade image quality *at all*.

 

</em></blockquote>

 

The problem with definite answers is that there's always an exception.

 

<p>For an example of a B+W MRC UV filter causing "ghosting" see the attached image.

 

<p>These are pictures of a laser dot on a smooth white wall in a darkened room. The

camera is a tripod-mounted Canon 10D set to manual exposure and focus. The only

difference between the two pictures is that one is taken with a filter on the 16-35mm 2.8L

lens, and the other is without the filter.

 

<p>Yes, this is an extreme example, but you'll get ghosting other times, too. Most often

folks see this around Christmas time when they take pictures of a Christmas tree and get

multiple, multi-colored "ghosts" in the pictures.

 

<p>If ghosting wasn't a problem with flat filters (especially on digital SLRs) why would

Canon go to the trouble to grind a meniscus lens as the protective filter on the super

telephotos?<div></div>

[lee_shively]

I use UV filters. Have for 30+ years. Never scratched a lens but I've scratched and cracked a number of UV filters. Buy cheap. Make sure it's flat without distortion. Take it off when shooting toward the light. Throw it away when it gets scuffed up. Forget multi-coating--it ain't magic it's only expensive and it's not necessary. My 70-200/2.8L wears a lowly Tiffen UV. Having had no problem with any Tiffen filter I've ever owned, I'd recommend them.

[bob_bell]

I use B+W 010 filters on my lenses.

[vincent_j_m]

Jay, I absolutely agree with you. I've been using filters on all my lenses and all of them have big hoods (70-200 etc). I have ever so often had to clean dirt, dust and junk off the filters and I really don't know where half of it comes from, and I am usually very careful with my gear. I'd rather clean a $40 filter than a $600 lens. As for those who claim to have never had dust, dirt and junk on their lenses in all their years of shooting, yeah right. We believe you.

[jay_.]

Bill: I've never tried the latest and greatest Hoyas but my experience with them in the past was that their UV filters have a brownish tint. I remember laying the Hoya UVa and a Nikon L37C and a B+W 010 on a piece of white paper and the Hoya jumped right out. It was almost an 81a.

 

Mike: I've only shot less rigorous stuff like floodlights at night and landscape shots in the desert with a 40 distagon and the sun in a corner of the shot, and didn't get any ghosting so I feel pretty confident. But if I happen to need to shoot a black dot on a white wall I'll think about taking the filter off for a second.

[michael_peters1]

I use UV filters.

I use B+W 010 filters.

 

Yes, a lens shade protects the front element to some degree - but EVERY TIME I get home, there are a couple of specks of dust on the filters of lenses I have used that need to be removed. Maybe 'cuz I shoot outdoors. I also have gotten stuff on a camera lens, even with a solid shade, because I slipped while shooting and mud/water splattered (I like creeks ans stuff) as I went down. It was nice to clean the camera up, toss the filter (I could not get it clean) and have a perfectly good lens ready for the new filter.

 

I supose there are cases where the extra piece of glass does noticably soften the image, but sometimes I wonder if the complaints about that are from people making stuff up or using cheap garbage filters, like whatever the latest thing Kits Camera (or whatever they are called now) is rebranding.

 

If you think a filter really does take away from your image, have you tried B+W?

 

It should be noted that use of a filter does remove the benefits of a recessed lens, so people who don't use a shade on a lens like the 50/1.8 might want to use one if they use a filter.

[Greg M]

I'll take Jay's advise. Just ordered the B&W filters (77 and 67mm) he recommended from B&H for my 17-40L and 70-200 f4L. About $142 for the two, but it'll be worth it if they are as good as he says. I just need to learn to be more disciplined in their use.<div></div>

[catman5]

Yep, I use them -- they are great lens-condoms. Hoyas are my choice due to quality and I have ruined more than one in travel. They offer great protection if you are out and about shooting. In a studio they are probably not necessary. But in salt spray, wind, blowing dirt or sand or whatever, better they get dented or scratched than the lens sustaining damage.

[yakim_peled1]

<P> <a href="http://photonotes.org/articles/beginner-faq/misc.html#protective">My camera salesperson tried to sell my a protective filter. Should I get one?</a> </P>

<P> As I see it - No. I am doing fine (for 15 years) without any. I think that the use of a protective filter is justified only in hostile environments (e.g. in the middle of a sand storm) where there is a real risk that something will actually touch the lens. And as I'm never in such places I simply use the lens caps when the lens is in the bag and the lens hood <b>at all other times</b> (i.e. when it's on the camera). This way... <br></P>

<P>1. I have the best flare protection. Some mediocre filters actually increase the chance of getting flare. Good ones are pricey.<br>

2. I have better physical protection. <br>

3. I save money of "protective" filters. A dedicated lens hood is cheaper than a good filter. <br>

4. I have best optical results. </P>

 

<P>The only filter I own is a CPL. As I have good lenses, I chose an equally good filter: B+W MRC.</P>

 

 

<P> Happy shooting , <br>

Yakim. </P>

[chrisjb]

Hi I also agree with Jay and have used filters for 35years

 

recently we had a neck strap break at the joint onto a camera carrying

a metz the outfit landed on a cement floor lens barrel 1st ,the filter while it shattered the extra strenth from the ring saved the front element of a $900 lens and was an easy repair to round of the filter thread , We use skylight 1A as we are always shooting people

and get warmer skintones, all my planar and distagons have UV as use for outside work, They do help protect now and again Also a lot of our work is in bars and quite ofter finger printed or get splashed on its easier to clean the filter than the lens

 

good luck