NO FILTERS WITHOUT A VALID PHOTOGRAPHIC REASON!
Many buy so called protective filters to be left on their lenses as a permanent feature but I say got some sky to polarise or reflections to deal with? Use a polariser. Going up the hills where UV and haze will be a problem? Pack a UV Filter.
Slapping a chunk of glass on your lens for "protection" just doesn't stack up to rational examination except to the person selling them. Don't get me wrong, I can understand using them when there is a definite risk of unwanted effects. However, your eyes are precious and delicate aren't they? I bet you don't wear safety goggles 24/7 in order to protect them.
One story I heard someone tell had me in stitches. Apparently, this guy fell down a flight of stairs one day while carrying his
camera and believed his UV filter saved his front element and left convinced he had to leave a UV filter on all his lenses all the
time. I hear that and think, thank God he didn't have a soft focus filter on the lens!
OK to be serious, I thought "a guy takes a tumble down a flight of stairs. His eyes could have gotten poked
out in the process, he could have snapped his neck, spine or limbs. Does he start to go about in safety goggles, helmets and kevlar?
Of course not! What does he do? He slaps UV filters on every lens and decides to use his common sense to deal with risks to his body." I wonder why that same common sense flies out of the window when it comes to this issue.
Common logic says you protect what is valuable and your health is MUCH MUCH more valuable than your lenses. Wearing safety googles 24/7 is not that inconvenient when you think about it given the myriad of bad things that could happen to ones' eyes. Yet, we take the chance and deal with the threat rationally. We know there is a risk but deal with it sensibly.
If you are so scared of damaging your lens that you can spend rip off amounts to buy the so called high quality protective filters to be stuck on your lenses 24/7, then think twice and apply the same logic to your eyes at least and wear safety goggles all the time. Remember that the very same meteorite falling out of the clear blue sky that you are so afraid might strike your lens, can also take out your eyes.
My argument is that slapping these on as a matter of routine is ridiculous and irrational. Shooters will go shoot dirt biking for instance and say "I must slap a filter on my lens to protect it" yet somehow, the same concern does not apply to their eyes which is infinitely more valuable. I am an observer of life and have to ask why. Surely, if a lens that could easily be replaced needs protection, then something like your eyes must need even more protection in the same circumstances. Don't you think? Conversely, if it is ok for the eyes to go without protection, then there is no need to "protect" the lens!
I know why you and that guy will not go about wearing safety goggles to "protect" your eyes from the mythical meteorite, because you will look like a dummy, that's why. Maybe it is time to rethink the so called "protective" filter.
Besides the irrationality of it, the damn things ruin images!
Here are some interesting tests on the effects of filters on images here.
This chap, puzzled on why his expensive lens was giving him poor results had a brainwave.
Nikon, makers of fine lenses, think that "protective filters" are bad for your images
What do you think? Do you agree it is time to tell Mr Salesman / Fearmonger where to stick it?
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