Do you usually use a filter?

[Ivan]

Dear All,

For 'normal" usual photography, do you usually use a filter or not? Someone suggested that I put my UV filter on all the time. If you have a great lens like the Planar 45mm/2, why spoil it by using a filter, albeit one made by Contax? Or am I just being silly?

Thanks
Ivan

 

[dmr]

For 'normal" usual photography, do you usually use a filter or not? Someone suggested that I put my UV filter on all the time. If you have a great lens like the Planar 45mm/2, why spoil it by using a filter, albeit one made by Contax? Or am I just being silly?

Not a Contax, but I keep a skylight filter on my primary zoom all the time, mainly to protect the front lens element. Lots cheaper to replace a scratched filter.

 

[pvdhaar]

In general I don't use filters. The modern lenses have such good coatings that block so much of the UV, that there's hardly any need for extra filtration in ordinary circumstances.

And in 25 years of photography, I've never had an accident with a lens, so I don't have the need for 'protective' filters.

I do sometimes use a polarizer (cut glare on glass/water) or an orange filter (darken sky) but that's only on my 6x6 SLR where I'm working very slowly.

 

[suzums]

I do use it with all my lenses at all times. I don't use a UV filter because I want to block it out, I trust that the glass are well built today!

Haha I use a filter just to protect my lenses from my own stupidity sometimes!

But with shooting with b&w, I've always had a habit of using and orange filter and a polarizing which shooting with color!

 

[ErnestoJL]

As long as UV or Skylight filters are cheaper than a front element, I´ll keep one of those permanently fitted to any lens I´m using. Many of the lenses I have are very old so a replacement is not always easy to find. I didn´t find any significant diference in the final copy when it was taken with or without the filter, so using the filter won´t spoil your picture, and helps to avoid scratches, dirt, or whatever.

 

[jaapv]

I'm with Peter; the only time I scratched a front element was because the filter broke.....

 

[Richard Black]

I use them when I want the effect. I do leave a UV filter on when shooting color film; I guess out of habits from the 60's.

 

[GeneW]

Back in the day I used to put a UV on all my lenses. Now the only filters I ever have on the lenses are a polarizer or a red filter for IR or dramatic skies in B&W.

Gene

 

[Oldprof]

I have a good collection of filters, but rarely use them. Back in 1973 I did some testing of lens resolution with and without filters. Basically, I made a test chart (using sharply printed magazine text pasted to a poster board) and shot it from a distance of about eight feet. I tested my 35mm, 50mm, and 135mm lenses at three different f-stops (wide open, f/5.6, and f/11. Then I looked at the negatives with a low powered microscope. In all cases the filters degraded image resolution, although the differences were often small.

Still, there are circumstances when a filter can help you improve your photographs - I have some nice Kodachrome landscapes that were greatly enhanced by the use of a polarizing filter. And yellow and red filters can add drama to black and white landscapes.

I don't see the need to use a filter to "protect" your front lens element. I use a lens cap for that. In 47 years of photography I've never smashed a lens element accidentally.

 

[new2rf]

What about those slight warming and cooling for portrait or some landscapes respectively?

 

[MJFerron]

An 81a along with a polarizer or a warming polarizer can help ad a warm glow to landscape photos. One of my favorite landscape photographers uses this combination.

 

[peter_n]

Not usually, always. Either a UV filter if color film, which is rare for me, or a contrast filter like med. yellow if B&W. If you buy good quality filters like those made by B+W they will have sourced the optical glass from someone like Schott which is where some Leica glass comes from. I use them for protection; from the elements, from my fingers, from the dust in my bag (I use canvas Domkes), from anything else you can think of. And if I sell a lens the front element is always pristine - none of this "light cleaning marks" stuff!

 

[Honu-Hugger]

Dear All,

For 'normal" usual photography, do you usually use a filter or not? Someone suggested that I put my UV filter on all the time. If you have a great lens like the Planar 45mm/2, why spoil it by using a filter, albeit one made by Contax? Or am I just being silly?

Thanks
Ivan

Regardless of who makes the filter (B+W, Heliopan, Nikon, and others do make exceptional filters) it is still one more glass/air surface and one additional element that the lens designers went to great efforts to eliminate. As Oldprof pointed out a filter can compromise your image quality. If I know I will be in inclement situations I will sometimes use a UV, skylight, or even a clear filter for protection, but these instances are rare. I keep a lens cap on for protection; I am careful and rarely ever have to clean my lenses. Besides, I bought these lenses for my benefit and enjoyment -- not for the benefit of the next person to own them (although I love buying used lenses that have always had a filter in place). I use filters when I want the effect they produce, but not for lens protection.

 

[r-brian]

I use a filter when it's needed. I never keep a filter on the lens for protection. Out here in the high altitudes, there is an abundance of blue light so I will use an UV or a sky filter when shooting color to offset a blue cast.

Brian