Avoid uv filters

[Buckster]

Buckster, I'm not actually in a position to provide you with more than anecdotes. What sort of evidence, just out of curiosity, would you accept?

I would accept anything that convinces me. But since it's your claim, it's your burden of proof, so you'll have to work that out on your own.

Good luck with that.

 

[amolitor]

So you will accept as evidence.. exactly that which you will accept as evidence. True, but not very interesting.

So, basically, nothing is going to convince you that in the millions of incidents of a lens+UV filter being dropped, bumped, dinged or scuff, not even a single time did the UV filter prevent damage to the lens itself. Not once. Since that WAS my claim. I am OK with you holding firm to that point of view, it turns out.

 

[BrianV]

I have a number of lenses that were saved by the use of protective filters. If you buy a used lens, buy one from someone that used a protective filter.

Usually a rubber mousepad is all that is needed to get a stuck filter off a lens. And when that fails, I have a round wrench. Never used a screwdriver.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

 

[kundalini]

I have somewhere between $12-15K invested in lenses, yes that was a capital K. None of them sport a "protective" filter. However, once a lens is mounted on the body, a lens hood is attached immediately afterward. The hood and common sense is all I need to protect my arsenal.

If I were shooting something like motorcross where they are slinging mud, dust or rocks, then I would consider a clear filter.

The cheap tripod theory also has some holes in it. I don't have a cheap tripod, but one time I was clearing up after a shoot and the toe of my sandal caught one of the legs. Crash, Boom, Bam, there goes my 24-70mm f/2.8. Part of it was still on the body and the rest was rolling down the hill. Sometimes Sh!t happens.

Another anecdote:
I was traveling from Ghana back to the states. I had left my B+W CPL on the 70-200mm from the last shots before I left the country. The air pressure from being at 30K feet created a vaccum. I couldn't move it, a couple of burly guys I know couldn't move it, several of the sales staff at my local camera shop couldn't move it. They suggested to leave it for "Phil". Phil had the right tool, basically a filter wrench like for oil filters, but made for camera lenses. A couple of days later and a whopping $5 service charge, I walked out with the expensive lens and expensive filter intact. No screwdrivers were used. Probably never even considered.

 

[Buckster]

So you will accept as evidence.. exactly that which you will accept as evidence. True, but not very interesting.

It wasn't meant to be interesting. It was meant to be factual.

So, basically, nothing is going to convince you that in the millions of incidents of a lens+UV filter being dropped, bumped, dinged or scuff, not even a single time did the UV filter prevent damage to the lens itself.

Now you're trying to put words in my mouth that I did not say, and they're not true, and I wouldn't say them. I don't accept anecdotal gut-feelings as evidence for things however - that much is true, and if that's all you've got, and all you'll ever have, then yeah, you're not going to be able to meet my standards for what constitutes actual evidence and proof.

If you want to wow me, show me the scientific testing that supports your theory; Testing that can be recreated, corroborated, supported, falsified, and so forth.

Not once. Since that WAS my claim.

And my challenge to you is to provide the actual evidence that it happened at least "just once", if you can. Apparently, you can't even manage to provide evidence that it's happened even one time, and you now concede that your claim hasn't a leg to stand on.

Okey dokey.

I am OK with you holding firm to that point of view, it turns out.

Me too.

 

[Buckster]

I have a number of lenses that were saved by the use of protective filters.

Prove it.

 

[ronlane]

Buckster, I never said that it couldn't take good pictures, so TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT THAT? Oh wait, you don't have to prove anything on here, you make me prove that.

 

[Buckster]

Buckster, I never said that it couldn't take good pictures, so TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT THAT? Oh wait, you don't have to prove anything on here, you make me prove that.

You were making statements that indicate your feeling that the aforementioned "kit lens" is near worthless, so no big deal if it were damaged to the point of being unusable, even if it's the guy's only lens and even if he can't afford another, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why you think that the "kit lens" is so remarkably garbage-worthy.

Perhaps you could enlighten me on that point?

 

[kundalini]

So you will accept as evidence.. exactly that which you will accept as evidence. True, but not very interesting.

So, basically, nothing is going to convince you that in the millions of incidents of a lens+UV filter being dropped, bumped, dinged or scuff, not even a single time did the UV filter prevent damage to the lens itself. Not once. Since that WAS my claim. I am OK with you holding firm to that point of view, it turns out.

Think about the physics involved with several pounds of gear falling from tripod height, for the sake of argument. The flimsy and frail metal of the filter will become deformed and no longer a circle. Furthermore, it will likely have jumped a thread of the lens's filter threads. You're more likely to damage the filter threads of the lens than to protect the front element. From a straight on impact this may not apply, but try and figure out the odds, in your millions of incidents, of that happening. From a R.O.I. point of view, which would prefer to save? The front element of modern lenses are much harder than any filter. Small scratches on a front element will be negligible to the IQ of an image.

 

[amolitor]

Oh, you want science?

Let us postulate a pointed object capable of scratching the lens of your camera. A diamond ring, a nail suitably aimed, or whatever. Let us drop the lens from a height and in such as way as the energy available is sufficient to scratch the lens, but just barely. I think we can agree that for a suitable object this energy is quite low. That is, we need drop the lens from a mere inch or two of height.

All we need to do is demonstrate that the energy required to break the filter is greater than the energy required to scratch the lens glass.

I will now do this with a nail, applied firmly but not violently:

... there. I scratched the front element of my Nikon 50 f/2.0 with the nail and now..
... applying the same force to the 58mm UV filter I have in front of me I find that it is scratched, but NOT broken.

I invite you to perform the same experiment at home! I admit that my force measurements were a little ad hoc, you may want to rig a device which allows perfectly repeatable applications of the nail to the lens. Then ramp up until you have just barely achieved a scratch on the lens. Then apply that same force to the UV filter. If the filter neither breaks nor deflects sufficiently to contact the lens behind it, we're done.

I'd show you pictures but, well, they could be photoshopped after all. It's best if you run the experiment yourself.

 

[ronlane]

Buckster, I never said that it couldn't take good pictures, so TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT THAT? Oh wait, you don't have to prove anything on here, you make me prove that.

You were making statements that indicate your feeling that the aforementioned "kit lens" is near worthless, so no big deal if it were damaged to the point of being unusable, even if it's the guy's only lens and even if he can't afford another, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why you think that the "kit lens" is so remarkably garbage-worthy.

Perhaps you could enlighten me on that point?

I didn't set the worth on it. They sell in the market for less than $200. I do not set that price. Is it the only lens you have, is that why you are defending it? Is it the lens for me, no, but I did have one, I did not use it much, so I used it to trade up to one that I would use.

I see that you have to be right no matter what so. I'm out of this conversation.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

 

[Buckster]

Oh, you want science?

Let us postulate a pointed object capable of scratching the lens of your camera. A diamond ring, a nail suitably aimed, or whatever. Let us drop the lens from a height and in such as way as the energy available is sufficient to scratch the lens, but just barely. I think we can agree that for a suitable object this energy is quite low. That is, we need drop the lens from a mere inch or two of height.

All we need to do is demonstrate that the energy required to break the filter is greater than the energy required to scratch the lens glass.

I will now do this with a nail, applied firmly but not violently:

... there. I scratched the front element of my Nikon 50 f/2.0 with the nail and now..
... applying the same force to the 58mm UV filter I have in front of me I find that it is scratched, but NOT broken.

I invite you to perform the same experiment at home! I admit that my force measurements were a little ad hoc, you may want to rig a device which allows perfectly repeatable applications of the nail to the lens. Then ramp up until you have just barely achieved a scratch on the lens. Then apply that same force to the UV filter. If the filter neither breaks nor deflects sufficiently to contact the lens behind it, we're done.

I'd show you pictures but, well, they could be photoshopped after all. It's best if you run the experiment yourself.

That's cute, but at this point, it's just another anecdote and, worse, told by someone who I ALREADY think is a poseur who's full of bullspit, and have stated so on previous occasions.

So sorry about your luck with that.

Next time, get some credible witnesses, video-tape, and calibrated instruments to run the testing with.

In the meantime, you REALLY should actually watch the video I posted in this very same thread.

 

[Buckster]

Buckster, I never said that it couldn't take good pictures, so TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT THAT? Oh wait, you don't have to prove anything on here, you make me prove that.

You were making statements that indicate your feeling that the aforementioned "kit lens" is near worthless, so no big deal if it were damaged to the point of being unusable, even if it's the guy's only lens and even if he can't afford another, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why you think that the "kit lens" is so remarkably garbage-worthy.

Perhaps you could enlighten me on that point?

I didn't set the worth on it. They sell in the market for less than $200. I do not set that price.

I consider the price irrelevant to the lens' "worth" as a viable part of a camera system.

Is it the only lens you have,

As Bitter so eloquently stated:

is that why you are defending it?

No. Look at the photos I posted, and guess again why I think your assessment that a "kit lens" is worthless is ridiculous.

Is it the lens for me, no, but I did have one, I did not use it much, so I used it to trade up to one that I would use.

(GASP!!!) Without breaking it??? How in the world did you manage THAT???

I see that you have to be right no matter what so.

I don't have to be right all the time, but so far, in this conversation, it's pretty obvious that I am.

I'm out of this conversation.

Another one bites the dust.