UV FILTERS - the debate rages on!
December 02, 2011
Let’s start by looking at what a UV filter is exactly. A UV filter is a round piece of glass surrounded by a metal mount that screws into the front of a lens. They (should) look clear to the eye and they come in different sizes to accommodate all of the different sizes of camera lenses on the market.
They are called UV filters because they filter out ultra violet wavelengths, some older analog film was sensitive to UV light waves so these filters became essential. However digital cameras don’t have this issue, so why do people still use UV filters? They have very little bearing over your exposure, (unlike a Neutral Density or Graduation Filter) so now they are used to protect your lens from scratches, finger prints and the like.
Now there is a lot of debate within photography as to whether you should use UV filters or not. Filters can create lens flare and drop quality in sharpness and contrast. So what do we think? As with everything in life you get what you pay for, A £7 filter (of any type) is more than likely going to be inferior to a B+W filter that costs £35 for example.
Now here’s the important bit for us; We’ve just purchased a Zeiss ZF.2 50mm f1.4 Planar Lens from http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/ that cost us around £600. So which would we rather? Replace a £35 filter or send our lens of to get repaired at a no doubt much higher cost. Plus within that time we cannot use that lens to shoot for our clients, taking value out of our service.
We recently did a shoot at the head office of McCarthy and Stone in Bournemouth, Things were going well and we decided to change our lens; not a problem, we change lenses several times within most photo shoots. This time however the lens we had just removed rolled off of our camera bag and onto the floor - it happens! You can see the results in the image below.
So what did we do? We unscrewed it and continued shooting with our lens still in tact. The client got their images and we didn’t have a hefty repair bill - yes its annoying but it could be so much worse.
You can get filters - and advice on filters at the following places
http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/filters.html
http://www.castlecameras.co.uk/filters
This is also an interesting and in depth Filter test -
http://www.lenstip.com/113.1-article-UV_filters_test.html
Hopefully this has been an interesting insight into how we protect some of our kit and therefore our clients.
Image Copyright Double Exposure Photographic.