Friday, August 14, 2009 at 10:11 AM UV filters… worth the sacrifice? Not at this rate!
@frederickvan recently tweeted about an article by the Tri-City Photography Club entitled “UV/Protective Filters in a digital age… useful or bunk!?!”, which was timely for me as I recently acquired an Olympus PEN E-P1
I popped down to the local Samy’s Camera in hopes of picking up a 37mm UV filter, but walked away empty handed as the only one they had was a Heliopan costing something like $60. They had no inexpensive Hoya’s or the like, and frankly that just seemed a bit rich. Now, had the Samy’s salesman been able to tell me what John Roberts of the Tri City Photography Club did, and I just verified myself, I may have spent the coin.
You should read John’s article, as it goes into great depth on compares many different filters. The short and skinny though is that a bad filter will give you ghosting or even worse, reflections off hotspots in the scene. Sadly only minutes before I read John’s article I’d place and amazon.com order for a cheap HOYA 37UV 37mm UV Filter, figuring it would be just fine. When it arrived yesterday I eagerly repeated John’s test—and was very, very disappointed with my purchase. The filter will be shipped back today.
Here’s the test shots; camera on a tripod, pointed at the ceiling lamp, without and then with the filter. The difference speaks for itself.
Olympus PEN E-P1 17mm lens, NO filter
Olympus PEN E-P1 17mm lens WITH the HOYA 37UV 37mm UV Filter
Reader Comments (10)
good to know... I have a e-p1 too .. arrived this week... and it too is a bit naked...fun little camera though
cheers
K
How bout a photo with the high dollar filter?
*If* I buy the high dollar filter, I'll certainly post a follow-up. But don't count on it… I'll probably just go naked.
I really don't think that a more expensive filter is going to make a difference.
Thanks for sharing the result, Joseph..
When I first started photography, I was fascinated with UV filters and thought it's the ultimate protection for my lens.. Then I thought, manufacturers don't make their lenses with UV filters in mind. With that in mind, the image quality must go down a bit with them, so I stopped using them and have not used a UV filter for around 30 years.. I'm just more careful.. :-)
Waleed, I'm the same… I haven't used a filter since I was in high school. But this little E-P1 camera felt so exposed, I wanted to protect it. But protection be damned, I'm not giving up quality!
I've been using filters for 5+ years & am slowly noticing the benefits of B+W/other top end filters over the really cheap ones. Images do appear sharper with less ghosting or light “noise”.
Why I use them; for me it’s the aforementioned protection but also the ease of cleaning. I've found the filters easy and stress free to clean. When we were in Africa last year this was critical, with the dusty environs. I've found another nice time to have easy cleaning is when there is salt water around (coastal/beach photography).
Degradation or lack of it; with my B+W filters I've never noticed image degradation. Maybe if I looked really closely. From experience I’ve noticed that if/when I choose to bump up sharpening in Lightroom, post processing that I do it just as much with images shot with my 50mm 1.4 @ F/8 *without a filter* as I do with my 24-105 F/4 L at @ F/10 *with a filter*. You could argue the “L” or lack thereof is why, or that the 50mm is “a bit soft” - but the 50mm is crisp @ F/8.
Indoor vs. Out: It would be interesting to know the difference between studio and outdoor/journalistic photography and the filter impact. I could see the former being more so - in the controlled environment. And if that is the case the filter can be easily removed. I tell myself the real world is dusty, dirty and imperfect as it is so a clean, relatively expensive piece of glass in front of a bunch of others (the lens elements) isn't a big deal and its worth any nominal impact for protection and cleaning.
I guess the debate rages on :-)
Note: Canon's L series weather sealing *requires* a filter to completely seal.
So what is this test you talk about ?? because I have also ordered a Hoya filter for my beercan and I just want to know if I made a bubu on that purchase (which I am more than sure that I did , since it only cost $13 including SH)
LokoTripper—the test is simple, just point the camera at a sharp light source and watch for the flares. Basically what happens is light comes in the lens, hits the sensor, and some of that light bounces back off the sensor and out through the lens. Which is fine, all the lenses have coatings on them to handle that properly. The problem is cheap filters like this will then reflect that light *back* to the sensor a second time, creating the glares that you see.
At least that's how I understand it. I've been criticized for being unduly harsh on this filter and told this is about the hardest test you can do, but frankly if it messes up my pictures, then I don't care if it costs $1 or $100, it's useless to me. I'd rather not hurt my lenses, yes, but I'd even more rather not hurt my photos.
There is some really interesting info in the comments here, most notably that according to Mr. Woodget above, the Canon L lenses actually *require* a filter to complete their weather sealing. I've stood in monsoons with my 1Ds Mk III and L series lenses and never had a problem nor never had a filter, but I also *always* have the lens shade on. I basically treat that big plastic shield as the buffer to protect my lens. I think it will absorb a lot more of a knock than any screw-on filter will. A lot of pros I know don't even put rear lens caps on their lenses in the bags while shooting, which while I'm all for speed and convenience in changing lenses, I'm also all for keeping my glass clean. I really don't want to have to retouch a ton of spots that could have been avoided had I kept the glass and sensor clean.
OMG- now I understand. I was taking some photos at night in San Francisco, with lots of little sparkly lights in the background, but was getting these strange reflections in front of my subject that I didn't like - in fact, many of them were on the subject's face - ick. I wasn't sure why / how that was happening, but after I saw the comparison pics above, now it makes sense. My lens protection filter was causing it.
Off comes the filter - if not always, at least for shots with possible reflections.