There are so many religious issues in photography. In fact, other than religion itself, I think only motorcycling has as many religious issues as photography.

One of these religious issues is about whether to keep a filter on your lens to protect it. Do you keep a glass filter on the end of your lenses all the time? Which is it? UV, UV warm, skylight, clear, multicoated?

What's your take?

Uv.

Originally Posted by fish There are so many religious issues in photography. In fact, other than religion itself, I think only motorcycling has as many religious issues as photography. One of these religious issues is about whether to keep a filter on your lens to protect it. Do you keep a glass filter on the end of your lenses all the time? Which is it? UV, UV warm, skylight, clear, multicoated? What's your take?

It degrades the shot .... On super wides with shallow shades, I sometimes do. Mostly I do not like to. (exception on windy days when dust and sand and salt spray are potential issues)

I would say no. I fall on the side of the fence that I do not want anything between my lens and subject that does not have to be there. I don't use one on my Canon, Hasselblad or Large Format lenses. That said I do carry a 77mm UV just in case I get into a really bad situation where I know the lens will get something on it, but I cannot remember the last time I used it. I will usually just be very careful and clean the lens first chance I get.

I often work in shipyards and other industrial plants where it's easy to walk into welding sparks, or have a faint cloud of paint blown around one from the guy spray painting 30 meters downwind. I like to use a high quality UV filter there, and a lens shade not only for glare but for additional front-element impact protection. I like B+W or the Hoya ultra-thin series, which are multicoated and much thinner than normal ones, although friggin' expensive. I'll never stack them (the Hoyas don't even have a front thread), and I'll take them off in some lighting situations where glare or loss of contrast is a risk.

In the studio, they all come off, and I try to filter the light sources instead of the lens.

Roberto.

Like many novices, I succumbed to buying a cheap UV the day after my 300D was delivered. I think it was more of an impulse buy cause "now I have an SLR, I need accessories!". Since then, I bought a better lens than the bundled 18-55 EF-S and I've decided that it doesn't make sense to put a $15 piece of glass in front of my $400 piece of carefully designed glass.

I still keep it in my bag, think I used it once when it was snowing real hard. Shot came out crappy anyway.

I'm still of the camp that says that replacing a cheap filter beats replacing an expensive lens. If the shot quality is really important I'll take it off, or if I want to swap a polarizer on and off quickly (why the hell can't they make a quick mount for a polarizer?) but by and large I leave it on.

'Course I am probably less careful with my lenses than a lot of people.

I have historically used skylight filters, but mostly UV now.