Recommended UV lens cover for lens protection.....

[petrochemist]

First, I'm a film shooter. I have never used a filter for "protection". I use specialty filters once in awhile (polarizer/star etc.) or colored filters when shooting BW. But a sturdy metal lens hood has saved the front of my lens a few times.

In regard to the star filter, you should never need one. A high quality lens will do this anyway. Example of this below. No filter. Shot in Madrid, Spain...

Diffraction spikes don't need a high quality lens, but lenses won't give them when used wide open which is often desirable in low light.

 

[Pixeldawg1]

In regard to the star filter, you should never need one. ..........

Tell that to my Tair 135/2.8 11-A with it's 20 curved aperture blades.

Not a high quality lens then, regardless of the reviews . Also a Russian lens. There are other factors involved as well, such as the aperture used (The smaller, the more pronounced this effect is), ultimately a characteristic of diffraction. Within the images that NASA produces, this is apparent with the stars in our own galaxy and one of the ways that they tell one of our stars vs. another galaxy's stars.

First, I'm a film shooter. I have never used a filter for "protection". I use specialty filters once in awhile (polarizer/star etc.) or colored filters when shooting BW. But a sturdy metal lens hood has saved the front of my lens a few times.

In regard to the star filter, you should never need one. A high quality lens will do this anyway. Example of this below. No filter. Shot in Madrid, Spain...

Diffraction spikes don't need a high quality lens, but lenses won't give them when used wide open which is often desirable in low light.

You should never have to have a separate filter to do this is the point I was making, which I stand by.

 

[petrochemist]

You should never have to have a separate filter to do this is the point I was making, which I stand by.

Except lenses without flat blades on the aperture will not give you diffration spikes.
The effect is caused by diffraction allong the straight edge adding up to give a spike. Lenses with curved apertures, or lenses used wide open or any not having an aperture at all will not give the effect without adding a filter. For that matter pinhole lenses won't either unless they've been specially made with polygonagonal holes.
If you can live with long exposures most of the time you can gat tyhe effect purely by shutting down, but there are times when this isn't suitable for the remainder of the image. even if the exceptions are moderately rare it's enough to rule out the 'never' you are using.
I'm not sure how many of my lenses are incapable of producing diffration spikes there are certainly over 20 of them quite a long way from never.

 

[webestang64]

Quite the discussion on my star filter. I think I'll shoot with it this weekend.

 

[480sparky]

Not a high quality lens then, regardless of the reviews . Also a Russian lens.........

Um.... no. In fact, it's one helluva great lens. But you can't get stars out of it no matter how you try because there's 20 curved aperture blades.

20 blades.

And they're curved.




So they can't create stars.

 

[daveo228i]

Interesting to read opinions for and against UV filters. Myself I have always purchased a UV filter whenever I purchased a lens. Living in the southwest since the 70’s I have desert sun, haze, and heat distortion to contend with. I’ve never had a filter degrade the image, and I’ve never scratched a front lens. B+W, Hoya are my favorites.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[ac12]

Everyone has their own view point on filters, and this filter vs. no filter discussion has been going on since I started photography, way back in the 1960s.

Back in the film days, it was to cut the UV blue, and I used to shoot at the sea shore (salt spray) a lot.

Today, I use a UV filter to keep the crud off my lens.
Just like the glasses I wear, it is sometimes amazing how much crud slowly collects on the filter. I feel more comfortable cleaning the filter than the front element. And if it is something that etches the surface/leaves a mark or is too hard to clean off, I can replace the filter with a new one.
And as has been mentioned, babies sometimes get their greasy/dirty fingers onto the filter, and that has to be cleaned off, in less than ideal cleaning conditions. I really try to avoid getting close to small kids, but sometime they come up running up to me and paw at the camera.

At my local high school, I use the filter as a disposable front element.

• The filter along with the hood is to protect the front element from greasy fingers. Every week, I used to clean fingerprints off the filters. Some of those fingerprints were really hard to clean off. I never understood how the kids got so much fingerprints onto the filter. Many of them did not seem to understand the message "keep your fingers OFF the front of the lens."
  
• And no matter how many times I tell them not to do it, they will use their questionably clean tee-shirt to wipe the filter.
  
• Front lens caps are constantly lost, so the lens are carried and stored without a cap, collecting grime and fingerprints.
  
• So, the filter is a last line of defense from the kids.

I discovered that some multi-coated filters are hard to clean off finger prints. Those were a pain to clean each week.
Now there are different types of multi-coated filters, some supposedly easier to clean.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept" Henri Cartier-Bresson