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Daylight filter in front of prime

G

Guest

Would using a DL filter be like your grandparents putting clear plastic seat covers on a new couch? Does it add or subtract from the quality of the photos of the average user?

I wish I had the time to plan my photography. However, it's often a last minute item. Yet I want even these situations to produce the best results. (kit: RX + 50mm 1.4 )

I appreciate any thoughts you may have.

...best in the new year.


jim
 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. I've been absent from the list for a while, but hopefully back now.

Jim, you pose a valuable question about filters. I always place a filter of high quality on the front of any lens that comes into my hands for use, even rented ones. To protect the front element, but also to have a minor positive affect for outdoor shooting, my filter of choice is always the B+W KR1,5 (Skylight) filter. Equal quality glass/coatings exist in the Heliopan line. And, of course, I don't think you can go wrong with the actual Contax filters, but I don't have those myself. In fact, I even keep a B+W KR1,5 on my yucky old sigma - and I'm sure the quality of the glass of that filter is better than the glass in the lens ;)

Anyway, back to the point. I won't put other brands of filters on the front of a lens because I feel that the glass has to be at least as good as the glass in your lens or you will be degrading your image. (Why pay good money for a good lens to put a sheet of window glass between lens and subject? - a crude comparison, but it makes a point)

If you add a good quality filter, you will NOT degrade the image. You might possible improve it, and you will certainly protect your investment in that expensive lens. (I'd rather damage a filter than front element, wouldn't you?)

If you use a poor quality filter, you will most likely receive lower quality images back than if you used none at all.

The reason I choose a skylight is that I shoot mostly outdoors, and the minor affect is has on haze/light is either positive, or not noticeable.

So, is it like putting plastic seat covers on the new couch? Maybe, but you never know it is there (unlike the covers), it makes no noise when you sit down (unlike the seat covers, don't sit on the filter!) and it actually might improve things a bit (not sure about the seat covers).

Hope that helps! -Lynn
 
Everyone that uses protective filters: how many filters did you ruin (replace) upto now?
 
I have replaced exactly one protective filter in approximately thirty years of photography due to physical damage, and it was not in front of a Zeiss lens at the time. I think the filter was more valuable than the (Yashica DSB) lens it was covering. A solid rubber ice hockey puck left the rink and hit the filter at an angle of about 30 degrees.

I have had to replace one protective filter due to salt sea spray. In this case it was covering one of my Planars.

Alex
 
I second Lynn (and I also use B&W UV filters when not using YELLOW or ORANGE for Black and white). Last month on my return from an overseas flight I discovered the front dust cover pushed in and the B&W filter fractured in 4 places (but not floating free). This camera was in a soft LOWEPRO camera bag in the overhead aircraft locker. The front element of my expensive ZEISS (35-70/f3.4) was not damaged due to the filter.
 
.....and I was about to run about naked! I sorta assumed (what do you become when you ASSume?) that it was over-protective. Maybe if you had a duplicate lens...

So, I'll chuck my 55mm Canon 1A and get a Helio or B+W daylight, as most of my stuff is outside also. Thanks all.

jim
 
Last month on my return from an overseas> flight I discovered the front dust cover pushed in and the B&W filter> fractured in 4 places (but not floating free). This camera was in a> soft LOWEPRO camera bag in the overhead aircraft locker.

I really fail to see how this much damage could be caused to your gear within the confines of the planes overhead lockers - surely this must have happened elsewhere??
 
Generally speaking, if you're going to use a filter, any filter, it should be the best possible quality you can get (multi-coated, etc.). Because a filter adds two air-glass surfaces, it cannot help but affect image quality, even if only a tiny amount. So the goal becomes keeping the effect to a minimum.

The irony, of course, in shooting with high quality lenses such as Zeiss is that the consequences of damage are so painful, so it makes a lot of practical sense to always have a filter. I usually use a hood with no filter, and hope for the best.

I used to routinely use warming filters because I shot a lot of E6 film which all seemed to tend towards the blue. But that doesn't seem necessary any longer. I do still use them when at high altitudes, though.

--Rick
 
>I really fail to see how this much damage could be caused to your gear within the confines of the planes overhead lockers - surely this must have happened elsewhere??<

This may be true, but surely the point is that the filter protected his lens, not where the damage actually happened?

Alex
 
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