leftj Loc: Texas

An ND filter is not for protecting your lens. Neither is a UV filter. Those are for when you are shooting film. A clear filter is the only filter for adding protection to your lens. The best protection is using a lens hood.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

If half as much energy were devoted to what's in a photograph versus what's behind a photograph, there'd be a lot more interesting photographs. Focusing so much on sharpness (pun intended) really takes away from improving the things that would really make photographs better.

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

Thank you Bob for the link
Jim

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

On most lenses, most of the time, a high quality, multi-coated UV or Clear Protective filter will do very little harm to images. At least it will be far less than you can see.

However, in certain circumstances even a top quality filter can cause issues, such as increased flare. That can occur when strong light (such as the sun) directly falls onto the filter. So with a filter on a lens, it's even more important than usual to fit the lens hood, to keep direct sunlight or whatever off the filter. Also, the hood will help protect that thin piece of glass, which in most cases is considerably more fragile than the lens it's supposed to be protecting.

I agree, using and ND filter for protection is a bad idea. Hopefully it's not a particularly strong ND... just one or two stops. But each stop of light an ND filter reduces will double the time the shutter needs to be open. Say you are shooting out in full sun and using ISO 100 and f/8... your shutter speed without any filter should be 1/400. But if you have a 3-stop (ND8) neutral density filter on there, you'll need to use 1/60, which can be tricky to hold steady. A 6-stop (ND64) filter would be even worse, requiring a shutter speed of 1/15 that's quite difficult to hand hold. And those are relatively modest ND filters. Alternatively you could increase your ISO... but then you begin to risk digital noise and reducing the dynamic range in your images.

Worst of all would be a Variable ND filter. Those are actually two Circular Polarizing filters stacked on top of each other. That means four separate panes of glass... eight air-to-glass boundaries for the light rays to cross (which is where image quality losses mostly occur). Also, most "affordable" Variable ND aren't multi-coated. Nor are they particularly good quality glass. Even so, they ain't cheap, while the "better" ones are quite expensive.

And it's all for naught. The ND really isn't helping in any way. A UV or Clear Protection would be a better choice to use for this purpose, if you feel it's necessary. Personally I have UV filters for my lenses because those can also sometimes be useful reducing bluish haze in scenic shots, which a clear filter can't do. But I leave the filters off my lenses until they are actually needed (blowing sand, splashing water, shooting near the ocean because "salt air" is nasty to have to clean off glass and I'd rather wash a filter than my lens). As a result, I really don't use them very often.

All my filters are high quality like B+W MRC, F-Pro or X-Pro, Hoya HD2 or HD3. I've been experimenting on another camera with some low cost Chinese filters that claim to use the same glass as B+W and have similar multi-coatings, but cost about half as much. Those are K&F Concept filters and the ones I'm using are Circular Polarizers (I don't know if they make UV or Clear Protection... I do know they make a variety of ND filters).

Perspicacious Loc: CA

I don't have filters on any lens except for my telephoto wildlife lens. Part of the reason is the lens won't accept them due to the nature of the convex glass.

I am basically lazy and leave my tripod in the car more often than not...but I have found that mirror less takes way sharper images at slower shutter speeds than slr when handheld.

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

Thanks for your input dirtfarmer

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

Thanks Peter

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

So true Bob. Thanks for responding, I always learn something new.
Jim

Pepsiman Loc: New York City

I have lens hoods for all my lenses. No filters...

HRoss Loc: Longmont, CO

Agreed

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Or larger aperture for that effect.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

I have seen scientific comparisons of the quality of filters, and was surprised that some of the most expensive were not better than some of the common ones. (I think Tiffen came across well against $150 ones.) I have a Hasselblad filter on one Hasselblad lens (came with it second hand) and it is fine but probably not a big deal.

On the other hand, I would not buy the bottom of the market that is uncoated glass. That would be like shooting a Hassie through window glass.

Personally, I do use clear filters for protection, but if I set up on a tripod for best quality I take them off.

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

Can use a clear filter instead of uv. Filter no filter been discussed at many times. Never would use ND filter, cuts down light for no reason. The ND filter good for waterfall pic

Truman Photography Loc: Anaheim Ca.

I agree.. if your shooting a Portrait just take the filter off..

usnret Loc: Woodhull Il

Me thinkist you need to spend more time learning about what the vast array of lens filters do as far as how they effect your images. As to protecting your lenses, no brainer, be careful with them. Treat them as if you had spent a lot of money on them. Please get back to me on what you have learned about ND and UV filters.