Using a Filter?

[NB23]

What’s the purpose of using filters?

 

[gdavis]

What’s the purpose of using filters?

I use filters to control aspects of the image at the time the photo is taken.

 

[fiddle]

Is that one of them broken glass reflections effect filters?
Did it save the lens?

 

[narsuitus]

Did the shattered glass damage the lens?

 

[logan2z]

How the hell did that happen??

 

[BrianShaw]

I see what you mean. That filter won’t provide much filtration. Maybe use another filter?

 

[JPD]

Lomography yellow-green effect filter.

No, like everyone else I would like to know what happened? Is the lens ok?

The yellow-green filter is one I really like for lush summer green enviroments and for outdoor portraits.

 

[foc]

I have always had a UV filter fitted to all my lenses (when I shot professionally) because if the lens takes an impact, the filter gets it first.
Only happened to me once and it was cheaper to replace the filter rather than a Canon L lens.

Filters can be fun in colour & black and white. I always found the circular polarizer my most used filter.

 

[Billy Axeman]

NB23 was beaten up with his own camera by an old lady who didn't like to be photographed without permission.

 

[JPD]

NB23 was beaten up with his own camera by an old lady who didn't like to be photographed without permission.

That explains it. I wondered for a moment if someone got offended by the black painted camera.

(Sorry, I couldn't miss the moment to crack a bad joke)

 

[film_man]

I always use hoods for protection, the only exception is the Leica as the hood gets in the way of the finder which annoys me.

 

[radiant]

I use my backbag for the lens protection. I just drop the camera there.

Also my brightest idea was to stack filter-plates to a plastic bag together. In a constantly rocking backbag. Maybe I should sell those to lomography.

 

[neilt3]

Getting closer to what your photographing's one thing , but in this case maybe you should have took a step back ?

 

[pentaxuser]

NB23 In the case you have shown us, is this your camera and can you confirm that in addition to the filter glass breaking the lens glass was damaged as well? This can of course happen depending on how bad the accident is but I'd have thought that intuitively at least the filter might prevent damage to the lens or has it been your experience that a filter always makes things worse for the lens?

I'd appreciate your views and experience on this. Without amplification a picture and a question tells us little. It's a bit like a picture of a car that hit a concrete bridge at 150mph and the driver was killed carrying a headline as a question that asks: What's the purpose of seatbelts and airbags. isn't it?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[narsuitus]

The filter shown here did not survive the fall on concrete – the camera and lens did.


Filter for lens protection by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[Arthurwg]

I do believe that a rubber lens hood can provide some additional protection to the filter/lens.

 

[Luckless]

Filters: Useful for filtering light and blocking dust/spray/other low energy impacts.

Also useful for providing a source of extra grit/fragmentation for moderate to high energy impacts.

 

[NB23]

I’d have much prefered a scenario where it would be a fine lady hitting me with her stiletto shoe... but no, it had to be an old lady.

Actually it was only a drop of my whole bag onto concrete. The camera was in the front pocket, lens facing front. It took the whole impact. The front element is fine!

A hood would have done a better job, but I took off the hood because the camera wouldn’t fit the pocket with the hood on. So yeah, in a sense, the hood is King because it also tells you where the camera can fit, and if it fits with it hood on, it’s probably a safer place! Lens hood = Double-whammy function.

But I also molest my equipment quite a bit. A camera that goes through my hands usually ends up very used with lots of patina, scratches...

 

[pentaxuser]

NB23 Haven't you answered your own question in a relatively positive way given the circumstances of the accident which you asked in post #1?

I take it that you will not abandon filters?

pentaxuser

 

[BrianShaw]

I took the question as rhetorical, or Socratic.

 

[Huss]

The front element would not have shattered like that. You just introduced a bunch of broken glass into your bag, your lens and maybe your camera but definitely into your life.
I don't use filters. Just lens hoods if I feel like being shady.

 

[NB23]

The front element would not have shattered like that. You just introduced a bunch of broken glass into your bag, your lens and maybe your camera but definitely into your life.
I don't use filters. Just lens hoods if I feel like being shady.

No, it wouldn’t have broken in this particular instance, but then again maybe it would have: the buckle inside the pocket where the camera was stored hit the filter in a quite dry manner. Thack! Without a filter, the front element would have quite a big scratch.

And how the hell do you justify a scratch on the front element of a Leica lens? If at least I was a war photographer. Or a favela-street photographer. Skid-row street photographer, ok fine. But no, in this case it was merely a bourgeois-poseur adventure.
But I concede you one thing, if it had a hood on, the filter would have been saved.

 

[gdavis]

If any of my lenses are in a bag, they have caps on. That's the purpose of using a cap, not a filter nor lens hood.

 

[AgX]

I have always had a UV filter fitted to all my lenses (when I shot professionally) because if the lens takes an impact, the filter gets it first.

Though cases are imaginable were a smashed filter has worse effect on the lens than same hit on the plain front element.

 

[NB23]

Yes you are so right

Though cases are imaginable were a smashed filter has worse effect on the lens than same hit on the plain front element.