gwilliams6

Thanks Ted, we may have met when I was on the NPPA Executive Board. My instructors in Photojournalism at R.I.T and my mentors from the Washington Post ,Newsday and the LA Times taught me this "ounce of prevention" as a young photojournalist coming up. After decades in the biz as a staffer at the Philadelphia Inquirer and freelancer for Time , Newsweek and others, the basic truths remain whether you are shooting film or digital, amateur, student or pro.

Yes we are "beating a dead horse" here. Hopefully this reasoned and proven advice is getting through.

Dennis833 Loc: Australia

I agree with Tony, you will not see the difference with some scratches on a lens and UV filters do impact on lens performance but the first part of his video about using ND and polarising filters is absolute bullshit.

Streets Loc: Euless, TX.

Anything over Ten bucks is too much. Amazon is a good place to start. Ebay is also a good place to get one like the Rokunar haze filter I recently bought for $6.95 shipped. I buy them to protect the glass and most will do nothing to the image than what the unprotected lens will produce.

timcc Loc: Virginia

For studio work, no filter is probably necessary.

For outside work, the hood is your best protection against most types of physical damage. But in some environments (dust, strong winds, salt spray, beach sand, rain, etc.) a UV or clear lens makes sense for additional protection if you're not using a polarizer or ND filter.

If you get a UV or clear lens, get a good one from Hoya, B&W, etc. Unless you are an extreme pixel peeper, you will not notice any degradation in your images as long as you keep the filter clean.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I don't know about anyone else but these days nearly all my factory lens hoods are merely plastic, a few after market ones are metal and a some really old Pentax Takumar lenses have metal hoods. Hoods are made for blocking light not protecting lenses from mechanical damage. Sure some as do filters can offer some protection. Don't drop you lens!

A couple guys (photographers) I once worked (1980-92) with went to Brooks Institute (photography college) in Santa Barbara. I worked with them in a museum. Things were relatively clean and calm there so I don't think filters were used much except for film color correction. I mainly worked with a naked 12" lens on an 8x10" view camera. We had Nikon F (my coworker's '67, '68 vintage), and a Nikon F2 Photomic, Hasselblad Super-Wide Camera, and many other cameras and a lot of lenses.

Yes, I usually write to general photographic principles and don't assume what equipment others are using. At home I do remove filters when shooting macro indoors. But even then I'm very careful not to get anything on my lenses. It is best I never have to clean the glass. I have a lot of shorter prime lenses that can easily get finger smears, hood or not; 19mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm (s), 50mm (s), 55mm (s).

suterjo Loc: Delaplane, VA

This whole discussion about UV is missing the point. Ultra-violet RADIATION (not light; light is what the eyeball sees. We don't see UV.) Glass absorbs almost all UV radiation so it never hits the focal plane or the film. Look up some optical absorption data on UV and see what gets to the focal plane. Not much.

Trustforce Loc: Chicago, Illinois

After looking at the Steve Perry and Tony Northrup YouTube videos, both make a good case for not bothering with uv filters to protect the front lens element from damage. I agree that one does not need a uv filter for digital (or for that matter, modern 35mm film) to filter uv from the exposed frame. I still want a good glass uv filter to protect from dust, sand and water, and use my lens hood to protect the front of the lens from getting banged.

ICUQT Loc: Columbia, NJ

Thanks. Good input

Rdhalste

Two points of disagreement. I find the mechanical protection wort the cost. "At altitude", in an airplane, or in the mountains I do see a difference with UV filters. It's no where near that of B&W film, but still noticable. In many cases, it's probably not worth the effort. OTOH when using telephoto lenses at high altitudes a UV filter may reduce a noticeable haze.

ICUQT Loc: Columbia, NJ

Thank you.

h2odog Loc: Brooklyn NY

You can't go wrong with a Hoya MC UV. I have 58mm one I got for free from a friend and use it on my Canon 55-250. It is only $16.90 at B&H. Check out the excellent B&H customer reviews.

Joe Blow

The problem there is that no filter is sufficient protection from welding sparks. Those sparks will do more damage to the camera and other parts of the lens than they would to the front element. Second, you should have been behind a protective screen and / or much further away from the welder. Third, you would have needed a filter in front to protect the sensor from the light. A #8 to a 12 ND is required.

If a grinder's sparks were hitting the front element, you were purposely trying to damage it. A grinder throws its sparks in one direction. Second, these sparks have little heat energy in them. Because they have a low density, they do not travel far or are very abrasive. That is unless you are within a couple of inches of the work area. More damaging would be the abrasive dust falling on the camera and lens.

Of course, anyone that thinks placing a camera inside a grinder's spark cone is a regular photography shoot has a short sided view here.

Ted H. Funk

Mr. Wiliams, that's interesting that you were on the NPPA Executive Board and, yes, it's possible
we may have met at one of their annual conventions; also, years ago I attended three of their
Flying Short Course presentations. In 1995 I attended the 50th Anniversary of NPPA's founding
and already had the opportunity to get to know Joe Costa pretty well. When I was having lunch
with Flip Schulke at that 1995 get-together, Joe Rosenthal came over to sit down with us for coffee and, of course, we asked him about his iconic photo on Iwo Jima.

Both you & I have provided professional "reasoned and proven advice" about the need to have a UV filter on your lens, basically for protective purposes, so if those who disagree do not follow this advice then they do so at their own risk and must pay to replace any damaged lens---because if the front element is damaged (by far the one thing most prone to damage on any lens), then the lens is worthless and must be replaced. Over these many decades, none of mine were damaged but a few cracked UV filters were removed and new ones put in place. All were optical glass and
these comments about "plastic filters" puzzle me since I've never seen or even heard of any?!

adamsg Loc: Chubbuck, ID

I was told by several very experienced photographers, years ago, to gut a UV filter on, primarily for lens protection. this was in my film days. I still have one on my prime lenses with my dslr, as there may be times when a lens hood won't offer the kind of protection I want. There has been a certain amount of scorn and vitriol in another thread on this same topic - does it really help anyone?

gwilliams6

Yes Ted, thanks for your post. I am sure we met at Flying short courses or at NPPA's 50th in Washington DC. I also was hanging out with our late pal Joe Rosenthal who took that icon "Iwo Jima" shot. You probably went to the Marine ceremony honoring Joe at the Iwo Jima monument.

To the point, all we can do is give our reasoned and proven advice here, and leave it at that.
Cheers and thanks for your input here.