Using a Filter?

[Alan Gales]

Clear filters also prevent blowing sand and dirt from hitting the lens. It's always better to clean a filter than a lens. The less you clean a lens the less the chance you have of scratching the coatings.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[John Earley]

I seem to use filters as a place to record my fingerprints. Better than the front of the lens I guess.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, I do the UV or Skylight is for color balance and protection, the rest is for their effect on contrast and rendition.

I had my Hasselblad 903 SWC on a camera strap and tripped on an upturned sidewalk slab. I feel forward and the lens hood got scraped but saved the camera and lens.

 

[logan2z]

I've resisted using filters for a long time but just recently started using them - I got tired of shooting beautiful photos of the inside of my Leica's lens cap, which is what I was using to protect the lens in lieu of a filter (I use a hood too). Logic told me that it was silly to put a $30 filter in front of an expensive lens, but conventional wisdom seems to be that a high quality filter like a B+W or Heliopan will not affect image quality. I just shot my first roll of film using the filter so I guess we'll soon see.

I also recently bought a yellow filter to help tame the bright blue skies of Northern California during our 8 months of summer Hopefully I won't have to do as much burning of the sky in darkroom prints going forward.

 

[eli griggs]

I've just made a habit of keeping a filter on each lens, on camera or off, cap and lens hood, with the exception to those lenses that use a bellows shade.

Starting out, it's just 'better' IMO, to place these issues into the "Basics" file of how you will handle your kit, so the chore becomes routine, then simply becomes reflex, and no a 'labor' as some photographers seem to consider the extra steps needed to safeguard their photography, from sloppy handling.

I've had cameras fall before and I've lost filters, and even a plastic hood, but never so much as a scratch on a lens, so I'm sold on using all three tools to safeguard my 'investment.'

 

[Pentode]

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

I lose more filters that way....

Almost all of my lenses wear a UV "lens cap" at all times to protect them from dust and scratches. It's a habit I got into very early and a practice I've recently begun to question as I shoot black & white about 90% of the time and usually end up switching the UV out for a yellow when I shoot anyway. Maybe as I acquire new lenses I should just put a yellow on them full-time instead. It might be more practical in the long run.

 

[pentaxuser]

I lose more filters that way....

Almost all of my lenses wear a UV "lens cap" at all times to protect them from dust and scratches. It's a habit I got into very early and a practice I've recently begun to question as I shoot black & white about 90% of the time and usually end up switching the UV out for a yellow when I shoot anyway. Maybe as I acquire new lenses I should just put a yellow on them full-time instead. It might be more practical in the long run.

Excellent points, it seems to me. Anything involving blue skies with clouds springs to my mind and while a yellow costs you one stop there can be very few instances that this is critical unless you have a very slow films such as the Babylons and Fantomes.

Yes it changes the look of certain colours but if this is seriously detrimental to the picture then I'd welcome actual examples of the before and after involving a yellow filter

pentaxuser