burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Folks, UV filters can only degrade the quality of your images. There is seldom a photographic need for using a UV filter on a digital camera... Modern digital gear includes UV filtration over the sensor.

If you want to have a protective filter for use over your lens in messy, dirty, gritty, dangerous, wet, basic, acidic, or salty-wet environments, look for a clear glass protector filter. B+W and Hoya make them.

Meanwhile, invest in lens hoods made for each of your lenses. They will protect your filter rings and reduce flare from light sources. I never work without a lens hood, except with my short macro lens (which has to get really close).

FILM is another story. I liked using UV filtration when I used film.

Basil Loc: New Mexico

That was a pretty good video, thanks for posting. This topic is one that come up from time to time, not only UHH, but most Photography forums I frequent. I think in the end, it is a personal choice. For me, I have gone back and forth on this issue but have landed in the camp that does not feel the need to use a UV filter on my lenses, but I do ALWAYS use a hood. I also keep my lens cap securely in place when possible.

gwilliams6

Clear glass filters are fine. Yes B+W and Hoya make some of the best. Look if you need validation here on your choice of going without any filter protection for your lenses, you will surely find those here that agree with you. And you will find those whose professional experience says otherwise. Take you pick of which posts here you side with. It is a personal choice, dictated in part by how , where , and under what conditions you use your equipment.

I will continue to use quality lens protection on all my expensive glass. Cheers !

Basil Loc: New Mexico

Good point. If I was regularly shooting at some Motocross event where flying debris and rocks were common, I'd provably want to consider a filter for protection.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Correct. I would never work without a clear glass protector around any manufacturing process that could throw sparks, metal shavings, or chemical droplets.

I like to use an ND or circular polarizing filter at the beach, to protect against sand and salt spray. For close work around sports action, I'd use clear glass protectors.

AND, for everything but macro, I always use lens hoods. I like to minimize flare AND protect against flying balls and drops.

For studio work with docile subjects, I never use filters unless for effect. But I still use a lens hood.

My ND filters get a lot of use, since I use Micro 4/3 gear. All my lenses perform best when used wide open to two stops down. So outdoors in bright conditions, I'm always using ND8 or ND16 or ND32 (three, four, or five stops' light reduction). For video, they're absolutely necessary.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

For welding, I will agree you need extra protection, but for the normal amature, which I presume the person asking the question is, UV filters are a means for sellers and commissioned salespersons to up profits by convincing novices and other people who should know better to buy something they, not only don't need, but actually works against their best interests. I have been a photographer since the 60's and I have never had a situation, including lenses falling to the floor or banging into a solid object, where a lens hood was not adequate protection.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

ICUOT,

Listen to burkphoto. He is a professional with decades of experience in the technical end of the photography business and a person who many of us on UHH consider a trusted authority on subjects as simple as filters to the very complex technical issues.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

ICUOT,

Listen to burkphoto (look down the blog). He is a professional with decades of experience in the technical end of the photography business and a person who many of us on UHH consider a trusted authority on subjects as simple as filters to the very complex technical issues.

Ted H. Funk

As a professional travel photographer for 40-years having my pictures published in magazines
all over the world and having my images marketed by 6 of the biggest Stock agencies, I can say
that one of the most basic things I learned many years ago was to ALWAYS have a UV-filter on
your lens---all of them! As we were told, it's far less expensive to replace a filter than an expensive lens---words to live by, which I did and was glad I followed that advice.

Although I've tried several brands, I find Tiffen filters to be excellent and I don't mean the over-priced "digital only" type from them or other companies. The comment made about UV coating
being able to be rubbed off by simply cleaning it is false. That writer may have been thinking about the Hoya HMC type (Hoya Multi-Coating) which can, indeed, be rubbed off by cleaning and I put all such filters in the drawers, never to be used again.

I've got Tiffen UV filters on all of my full-frame Canon lenses with their Thin-Ring version on my lenses from 24mm & wider, then Heliopan filters on all of my Leitz lenses.

gwilliams6

In addition to my worldwide pro career as a staff photojournalist for newspaper and magazines, and my career as a freelance editorial, fashion and wedding photographer, I also teach Digital Photography and Photojournalism as a Professor at the university level. I am responsible for the camera equipment purchases for our many classes of photo students. I have made sure we bought uv filters for all the lenses in our camera kits (Nikon and Canon DSLRs) that we check out to our students for still and video assignments. Every semester we get back lenses with broken filters from the student use of the equipment. We can afford to replace these filters, but our equipment budget wouldn't cover it if we had to replace those same actual lenses.

Stuff happens to amateurs and pros alike. Do the smart thing and protect your investment , whether amateur, student, or pro shooter.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Lens hood for LONG telephoto lenses, yes. What protection does a lens hood on a 15mm lens provide? Not everyone is shooting birds with a 500mm to 800mm lens!

Ted H. Funk

Thanks, Mr. Williams, for your totally agreeing with what I've been doing for my entire professional career, in addition to the 8-years before that at two universities---the 2nd one being
at the famous University of Missouri Journalism School with my degree in Photojournalism, then I went on to my Master's before going directly to free-lancing for the National Geographic Magazine. When I rarely used a Polarizer, then the UV was removed to prevent vignetting but immediately put back on again when the Polarizer was no longer wanted.

Your reply to that Post stating that only a lenshood is needed also gets my full agreement. My
career spanned from 1965 to 2005, after which I decided to retire but do my best to keep up.
Basic principles, such as you & I are writing, are usually the same for both film and digital. To
use my Canon "L" series lenses with only a lenshood and no UV filter would be simply foolish!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The lens hoods on wide angle lenses are usually flower-shaped. They provide minimal protection against drops. If you need to work in any hazardous environment, then yes, a clear filter is advised.

If you're doing astrophotography, that is one case in which a filter of any kind can ruin your image. Light can be reflected off the front element, to the back side of the filter, and back into the lens, creating excessive flare or a halo around what you're photographing. (Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt...)

I'd suggest that any crowd of people is a potentially hazardous environment. The beach, any sort of racetrack, manufacturing environment, chem lab, workshop... Those are all places where a clear glass filter, ND filter, CP filter, or special effect filter can protect the lens.

A portrait studio seldom constitutes a hazardous environment. If it does, the photographer has not taped down cables, or is using an insufficiently sturdy tripod, or is working hand-held without a camera strap around his/her neck, or has a medical condition!

UV filtration over the lens can cut haze in outdoor distance scenes when using a film camera. It just costs you 1/3 stop of light and does not gain you anything other than protection when you use a digital camera, or when you use a film camera indoors. A clear glass protector does not cost you that 1/3 stop of light.

Use common sense (Where am I? What's near me? Could I drop the camera? Could it get hit with something? Am I graceful, or a klutz?)

And for heaven's sake, carry insurance on your camera equipment! Individuals can purchase an inexpensive rider on their homeowners' insurance. Schools and businesses can get this sort of coverage, too.

We keep seeing this sort of thread a couple of times a month. It seems as though flogging a dead horse would lose its appeal by now.

oregonfrank Loc: Astoria, Oregon

I like and use Zeiss and Nikon. I'm also interested in trying Breakthrough Photo.

Ted H. Funk

Yes, again I agree---this is just plain common sense and to bring it up again & again does, indeed, seem "like flogging a dead horse"!

When I first learned about doing this to protect my valuable lenses (all paid by me, as an amateur
and then later during my long professional career) was way back in 1958 at an NPPA Seminar
(National Press Photographers Association when I was a Student Affiliate, later a full member).

Bob Boyd, a prize-winning photographer of the Milwaukee Journal (an excellent picture paper!) told us that quote that "It's a lot less expensive to replace a filter than to replace an expensive lens!" It was something which I began immediately and all of my lenses remained intact.