filter brands

[bjfowle]

What is the best brand of filters to buy? Are quantaray ok? I just bought a 50mm lens off ebay and need to get a uv filter and maybe some others.

 

[Jon K]

What is the best brand of filters to buy? Are quantaray ok? I just bought a 50mm lens off ebay and need to get a uv filter and maybe some others.

Hoya and B+W are considered to be of the better. They can get mega $, UV filters for a 77mm wide lens can be cost prohibitive. Sometimes you can get ghosting/reflection with UVs, I run my L lens without one.

 

[KevinR]

For uv filters, its not that big a deal which one. The Quantaray is just Ritz cameras house brand. I use to work there. The filters are ok. Most of their stuf is made by pretty decent companies, i.e their lenses are made by Sigma.

 

[spike000]

B&W for screwthreads.

Best bet - get a filter system. Cheaper ones like the Cokin A & P are ok but for really great results Lee filters are the way forward.

UV filters are OK if you are just using them to protect the lens but remember that your lense has been constructed very carefully to work as it is. Adding bits of glass or plastic to the end will result in loss of quality of image.

 

[Kodan_Txips]

There was a time, decades ago, when a UV filter was needed because existing lenses didn't then have much in the way of UV stopping power. Nowadays the lens itself will usually be as good or better at it than even the most expensive UV filter. And in the example of my recently bought 77 mil filter thread lens, I could either buy a filter, or another lens on ebay. ( A joke, but only just!) Or I could get something else that would be more fun than the filter.

The question is, what does a filter do that the lens cap won't. Transmit light, of course, as well as protect the camera - lens ONLY. If the lens is in an environment where it is in danger, you should be protecting the camera itself almost as well. So, I would use a filter when at the beach, in a sandy or dusty environment, stuff like that. Then, maybe you should be using a different filter anyway? And don't get caught out using Cokin or similar - dust and sand gets round the back of the holder!

I use a UV filter on my 1.7 50mm, cos I need the light, and don't use a lens cap. I will risk the 24-70 mil zoom without a 77mm filter, cos I am a cheapskate. But for my Dimage Z1, I have bought the 49-52 mm extension tube and a UV filter because together they seal off the only area of the camera open to the environment, they protect the wobbly lens mechanism, and because it reduces the "start up time" that is so irksome with digital cameras - I don't need to use a lens cap..

I can get my Minolta x300 out, focussed and 3 frames into a sequence before the Z1 has got itself ready for the first shot.

And if you get into systems like Cokin, always buy less filters than you think you will need - drawers around the world are like a "plastic sink" full of starburst and rainbow filters, used only once. Or be like me - my local "real" photo shop sells the wackier ones in useable condition for about a dollar each.