Good vs. Bad UV Haze filters?
in [Digital Cameras]
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From: Neil Harrington on 6 Jan 2010 03:11 "Ofnuts" <o.f.n.u.t.s(a)la.poste.net> wrote in message news:4b43a2e4$0$21973$426a74cc(a)news.free.fr... > On 05/01/2010 20:34, No spam please wrote: >> "Ofnuts"<o.f.n.u.t.s(a)la.poste.net> wrote in message >> news:4b43846a$0$689$426a74cc(a)news.free.fr... >>> On 05/01/2010 17:32, No spam please wrote: >>> >>>> I dropped a 24mm lens onto a carpeted floor. The UV filter was a >>>> write-off >>>> but the lens itself was fine. >>> >>> Nothing says the 24mm alone wouldn't have survived :-) >>> >>> -- >>> Bertrand >> Hello Bertrand. >> >> The filter was a write off . If it hadn't been on the lens then the front >> of >> the lens would have taken that impact. >> It would have been a workshop repair or replace. >> >> A zoom lens wasn't so lucky when I tripped on the pavement. It took an >> impact to the body end of the lens. That was a workshop job; it needed a >> new >> rear end tube. >> > > Consider: naked lens falls on wood table corner: heavy and thick lens > harder than wood, no damage to lens. Lens with filter falls on wood table > corner: light and thin filter breaks to pieces, shards make scratches on > the lens. Hood is better. I agree. I believe this whole business of "protective" filters started with salesmen asking every new lens buyer, "You wanna filter to protect the lens?" -- as if that were the purpose of a filter. I think a salesman asked me that every single time I bought a lens, in the days before buying lenses online became the easiest way to do it. Judging by the number of Skylight and UV filters I've seen more or less permanently attached to lenses, I guess this sales tactic must have usually been successful in pushing these high-markup items. In well over 50 years of amateur photography I have NEVER used a filter "to protect the lens," though I have used them for their design purpose, filtering. I've never yet had a lens damaged by lacking a "filter for protection." I have seen some filters stuck so tightly to the lenses they were put on they could not be removed (though dust managed to get inside the filter), and on one occasion trying to remove a filter resulted in unscrewing the whole front component of the lens. Especially for lenses with the front element near the front of the lens, I think a lens hood is the best protection.
From: MikeWhy on 6 Jan 2010 03:58 "Neil Harrington" <never(a)home.com> wrote in message news:_-6dnU8SHdcA2NnWnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d(a)giganews.com... > In well over 50 years of amateur photography I have NEVER used a filter > "to protect the lens," though I have used them for their design purpose, > filtering. I would only add that the few times I wondered if a haze filter wouldn't help cut through and improve contrast even marginally in the late afternoon high altitude mountain haze, the said Tiffen Haze1 was more than 1000 miles away, safely tucked in the lens drawer, forever unused. I might never know firsthand if they really do anything useful. "Storing" it on the lens might not be such a horrible idea, even though I confess to wondering if haze filters weren't named for the lost of contrast they contribute the rest of the time.
From: Wolfgang Weisselberg on 6 Jan 2010 09:40 John Passaneau <w3jxp(a)arrl.net> wrote: > I speculate that many of the lens that have been specially > designed for digital incorporates infrared filtering in there design > which would have the effect of improving the contrast of the lens. A look into lists of what lenses are useful for IR photography indicates your speculation is likely wrong: the most common problems are IR hotspots --- and I haven't yet heard of a lens that's opaque to IR, though such a beast may exist. -Wolfgang
From: David Ruether on 4 Jan 2010 19:27 "Paul Ciszek" <nospam(a)nospam.com> wrote in message news:hhtrab$bve$1(a)reader1.panix.com... > I came across this site: http://photo.net/equipment/filters/ > The author used a UV/Visible spectrophotometer to compare different > UV/Haze filters. It shows four filters doing no serious attenuation > down to 350nm (which was as far as their instrument would go). The > "B+W" UV filter looks the best to me, with a flat transmission curve > across the visible and abrupt absorption beginning in the high 300's; > I wish the article identified the "B+W" filter more specifically. > The Hoya filter looks to me like it would interfere with color balance > in the visible range. > > Since I live in Colorado and will probably be taking most of my pictures > at high altitudes, a good UV filter is necessary. Has anyone here > compared different UV filters? My camera is a Lumix FZ35, which takes > 46mm filters. Even with transparency film, the effects of UV on images at elevations to at least 11,000 feet are negligible - and any that you may encounter with digitial can be removed later, or by auto-white balance in the camera while shooting. Also, most multi-element lenses themselves absorb quite a bit of UV. If you want a good UV to just cover the lens with, I like the Hoya single coated UV or clear filters - but I avoid Tiffen filters "like the plague". --DR
From: David Ruether on 6 Jan 2010 09:37
"MikeWhy" <boat042-nospam(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:hi1jbr$ohj$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... > "Neil Harrington" <never(a)home.com> wrote in message news:_-6dnU8SHdcA2NnWnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d(a)giganews.com... >> In well over 50 years of amateur photography I have NEVER used a filter "to protect the lens," though I have used them for their >> design purpose, filtering. > I would only add that the few times I wondered if a haze filter wouldn't help cut through and improve contrast even marginally in > the late afternoon high altitude mountain haze, the said Tiffen Haze1 was more than 1000 miles away, safely tucked in the lens > drawer, forever unused. I might never know firsthand if they really do anything useful. "Storing" it on the lens might not be such > a horrible idea, even though I confess to wondering if haze filters weren't named for the lost of contrast they contribute the > rest of the time. I had a job almost ruined by forgetting to clean my color correction Tiffen filters before use (they tended to "self-fog" in less than 3 months of storage on both sides, and always needed cleaning before use - and none of my other filters had this problem, stored in the same cases...), thus my low opinion of Tiffen filters. It may be that you saved yourself from adding haze TO the photos - but I've never found a "haze" filter to work as advertised in those advertising sample pictures! ;-) But, on the other side, I do use good (Hoya and Nikkor) filters to keep lenses clean (cleaning multicoated surfaces completely is very difficult, and I would rather scrub a filter, which I can also wash, than a lens surface...). I also use shades when they contribute (which is not always - and when they don't, I prefer the simplicity and compactness of leaving them off). BTW, I once had a wide angle grabbed, and the filter got scratched badly in the process, so I prefer to use "protective" filters when possible. Also, a friend sent me some samples from her new Panasonic FZ35 since she had been complaining about "white spots" in the images shot against the light (and she insisted her lens was clean...). But, there was the evidence in her images of spots on the lens - which would have been FAR easier for her to see and to remove had they all been on a filter... --DR |