darrylhill

<p>I have the tamron 90mm Macro and the front element is so far recessed, it's would be darn near impossible to just casually damage it by bumping it against something. It would have to be something protruding several inches. With the included hood, you have a few more inches on top of that.</p>

<p>So, in this case, the clear filter provides no additional protection, and to me hurts more than it helps as you have increased chance of reflections; minimal (at best) degradation of image quality.</p>

<p>oh to answer your question more directly, the front element never gets close to the end of the lens</p>

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<p>My guess is that it's the embedded jpeg that you are seeing in the preview. You can confirm by using ViewNX (free) to do the raw conversion to jpg or tif.<br>

When I first started shooting raw I had noticed this as well and it was difficult for me to switch to a workflow without using nikon software, but the new ACR in LR3 and CS5 does a much better job. </p>

<p>@Matt<br /> To solve the problem of the cluttered display, it can be a feature of cameras that have DOF buttons so that when you pressed the button the display changes as well.<br /> The "in-focus" area is not really subjective or an illusion at all, it is a calculable thing as the myriad of Iphone apps that do just that shows. Building the calculator into the camera would only give the convenience of not having to input the data into a DOF calculator.</p>

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