UV Filter or Not to UV Filter – that’s the question
Do I really need a filter? OK, if I do, then does it matter which one I get? Is there a real difference? Well, I suppose that you can answer this in a couple of ways. I’ve asked friends, photographers and even went to the internet via forums and web searches and everyone has different opinions- just to protect your lens, just polarizer and ND, digital doesn’t care about uv, lens flare, etc…. And I wanted a slightly more scientific approach. So i found this article.
They used a spectrophotometer to measure the quality of the filters. Talk about scientific! And of course, they did some real life testing with the various filters. I thought it was a helpful/useful test. I’m going to test one of their suggest filters. I found one on ebay for $30, so not a bad investment/test since an el cheapo Tiffen costs about $10.
Here’s what I look for mainly for UV filters:
Multiple coating – Why? Biggest practical reason is that my kids touch my filters and get their fingerprints all over it. yuck. but the multiple coating makes it easier to wipe away the fingerprints.
Mainly, i’ve been using it for lens protection. From my basic experience, I’ve found the quality of the filter does affect your outdoor shooting as the article shows with the various pictures.