Best UV Filter

[jpgarnier]

Hello All

I need advice for a UV filter for my lens. What brand and type would the group recomend. There are a whole slew of different types of UV filters like, Multi coted, super coated, ultra thin and the likes.

Amy help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

JP

[bmac]

I use BW Multicoted UV filters on the lenses that have them (not many). Ultrathin is for wide and super wide angle lenses.

Brian

[Tom Duffy]

There is something of a consensus on the Leica forums that the best currently available is the B&W MRC filter. Multi-coated, easy to clean. I only own one, a 105mm YG for my 5x7 lenses, which I don't normally shoot into the sun, so I can't give you a real life comparison. All my filters for 35mm are older and I frequently have to shoot without a filter, because I know I'll get flare, otherwise.

[Loose Gravel]

JP

I have never used one. I suppose if you photograph in sand storms or driving rain, then protection would be nice, but I see no need to filter out UV. Sometimes color photography at high elevations renders blue sky an unusual color, which it is, and maybe then...

To me, adding a UV filter is just something in the way to degrade the image. If I were going to use one on anything but a wide angle lens, I'd buy the cheapest one I could find. The glass that your lenses are made of stops all wavelengthes shorter than 350nm.

[bmac]

You are suggesting buying the cheapest one he can find? That is crazy! IF you are going to put a filter in front of your lens, get the best quality you can afford. The few UV filters that I use are on lenses I use at the beach. They are just to protect my lens from the salt spray, not block any uv.

[jpgarnier]

Yes... it's mostly for protection, scratches and the likes + UV filtration. I just wanted to get a feel for what others are using.

I'm definately getting a filter just didn't know which one.

JP

[Aggie]

..

[bmac]

its easy enough to check for vignetting.

[Ed Sukach]

Strangely, the last reason I'd use a UV filter is for filtering out ultraviolet light.

They WILL, but their most important use is for lens protection. Some of the most heart-wrenching sights I have ever seen are the used top-flight Leica and Hasselblad lenses with a definite, dull center spots caused by constant knee-jerk cleaning. I do not care what method is used to clean a lens, they will all, without exception, wear on the coating, and eventually the combined effect will be image degredation ... mainly manifested by a reduction in CONTRAST - well before defintion.

I KEEP UV filters on all my lenses. I can clean those to my hearts content, and replace them if and when I've ground the centers to transluscence (hasn't happened to any of them yet). I clean the lenses themselves, on the average, about once every two years.
I have a number of UV filters, B&W, Hoya, Tiffen, Heliopan, Singh-Ray, and "unidentified from the bargain boxes". I cannot tell one whit of difference between any of them - or, for that matter, photogrpaphs taken without them.

Vignetting can only be caused by a filter too small to cover the optical field, not by some alchemic, mysterious propery of the filter itself... in the same manner as a too-long lens shade used on a wide-angle lens.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've compared all my filters side by side, and in a flare inducing situation, even a cheap multicoated filter will do better than any single-coated or uncoated filter. Resin filters, interestingly enough, seem better than single coated filters as far as flare and ghosting is concerned.

I don't use protective filters unless there is an obvious hazard, though I do use UV filters (or sometimes something stronger) with color film to filter UV.

The best filters being made today are Heliopan and B+W in their multicoated versions.