Question For You Photographers
- Thread starter indianafrank
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I've never put a filter on a lens unless it was required. If there is blowing sand or water I might use a UV of the highest quality. Harsh conditions sometimes require less than perfect protection. I'll use a polarizing filter only when it adds to the shot. I've just never seen the sense of buying the best glass available and then degrading the image with an extra piece of glass the designers never planned on. A thirty dollar piece of glass on the front of a $2,000.00+ lens makes no sense to me.
None of the above applies to B/W shooting of course. B/W often lends itself to different filters for effects.
Softening filters have a place also.
UV and so-called "Haze" filters for every day protection of the front lens I always saw as a way for salesmen to add to their paycheck.
None of the above applies to B/W shooting of course. B/W often lends itself to different filters for effects.
Softening filters have a place also.
UV and so-called "Haze" filters for every day protection of the front lens I always saw as a way for salesmen to add to their paycheck.
I do. The main purpose is to protect the front element from dust, smog, farts or whatever. I haven't noticed that a UV filter takes away detail. Depending on conditions, I'll also use a polarizer.
I see it in loss of "snap." Really annoying when trying to over reach a lens. Not so obvious in a prime but, it's there.
I should add that my big glass have filter carriers. So there is a piece of plain glass built into the formulae and that the addition of a B/W or polaring filter causes no degradation. Nothing noticeable anyway.
I keep a lens hood attached at all times. Gives protection from more angles than a filter. So, no filter unless polarizing.
A UV filter is like a strong haze filter, a lot of people keep something on up there just for protection, and if it is a good filter, high quality planar glass, it shouldn't hurt, but best to test to be sure. UV or haze filter is mainly good when shooting long tele to cut down on the effects of blue scatter over long distance. Might also do some good if you know your lens (WA zoom?) has a lot of blue error (chromatism).
Digital cameras all have a NIR filter installed ahead of the sensor chip already to limit their abundance of red sensitivity.
Digital cameras all have a NIR filter installed ahead of the sensor chip already to limit their abundance of red sensitivity.
A lens hood is good, cheap protection with a purpose. The only time I bother a tourist is when I see a tourist with a decent set up shooting without a hood. They spend thousands to get up here and want a record of the trip. I hate for them to go home with flat photos. Fastest way to improve your pictures is a hood to minimize extraneous light bouncing around in the lens barrel. And, they are cheaply and easily replaced when they sacrifice themselves to protect the lens.
None of my long teles are even threaded for a filter.
None of my long teles are even threaded for a filter.
Your are of course totally right. Especially in outdoor shooting, you should usually have a hood of some kind, ideally, designed for the lens to block all incoming light except that which will go through to form the image to get maximum contrast. Contrast is perhaps the single most important thing.
As far as long teles, many of the better ones have internal filters when needed that go in near the back.
As far as long teles, many of the better ones have internal filters when needed that go in near the back.
Toob - my father had to quit school in the 2nd grade when his father died and went to work as a cooks assistant at a lumber company in the Louisiana swamp. When he got old enough he went to work as a deckhand on towboats and worked his way up to Captain. He was weathered.
While in the Coast Guard and shooting film, I used UV filters all the time to protect the lens from salt water spray and debris.
While in the Coast Guard and shooting film, I used UV filters all the time to protect the lens from salt water spray and debris.
That's what I wrote. There must be a piece of glass in the carrier of some sort for the lens to perform optimally in my long lenses.
I also believe lens manufacturers spend million to develop lenses and any additional glass in front which is not included in the final formula will cause the lens to not operate as designed. Light can be scattered, bent, etc. This is really critical in quality zooms as they are usually only at their optimum one place in the range and at one f/stop. Everything else is a compromise through the range. This is why I prefer fixed focus lenses. I'll use a zoom when appropriate but, I realize the limitations. So, adding glass to a lens should only be done when absolutely necessary in my opinion. If the front element suffers a scratch Nikon can replace it. Damage to a coating is also readily repairable. At worst the first element can be replaced.
It's only my opinion and perhaps I'm anal about it. So be it.
I also believe lens manufacturers spend million to develop lenses and any additional glass in front which is not included in the final formula will cause the lens to not operate as designed. Light can be scattered, bent, etc. This is really critical in quality zooms as they are usually only at their optimum one place in the range and at one f/stop. Everything else is a compromise through the range. This is why I prefer fixed focus lenses. I'll use a zoom when appropriate but, I realize the limitations. So, adding glass to a lens should only be done when absolutely necessary in my opinion. If the front element suffers a scratch Nikon can replace it. Damage to a coating is also readily repairable. At worst the first element can be replaced.
It's only my opinion and perhaps I'm anal about it. So be it.
OK, its late, there are no interesting threads running and most people have signed off, so before I leave to go smoke a bowl of Nemesis, I'll post one last crazy picture that is way off the mainstream for those who might find it interesting.
Here is another picture taken of outer space. It is a picture of what is called Messier 13 in Hercules, which is a globular cluster 22,000 light-years away. That is 22,000 X 6,000,000,000,000 miles away, or 1.32 X 10^17th power miles. Really far. A globular cluster is a giant ball of thousands of stars, this one about 160 light-years across. It is about 4.3 light-years to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. Globulars are huge stellar masses which mostly orbit the galaxy like fireflies circle a porch light. :mrgreen:
Nothing special about this picture in the bigger scheme of things, it only catches the brighter stars. If you Google M13 you will find much better pictures showing thousands of stars all packed in a ball! If you live way out in the country, you can just catch a hint of it with your naked eye in the sky as a tiny, fuzzy smudge of light. Here is the picture though, then I will tell you what makes this one interesting:
Pictures like this always involve long exposures as these objects are very small, very dim and very far away. This picture was taken with a 3,900mm super telephoto at f/11.
What sets it apart though is that it is a snapshot! It is a single half-second long hand-held snapshot.
How is that possible?
The picture was taken through a highest-quality Gen III photo-multiplier tube--- a special night vision lens fitted to the telescope that was originally made for an F-16 fighter jet so that the pilot could see his targets in the dark. It is restricted technology from the military not for export outside the country. It increases the light by about 50,000 times giving a very clean, sharp, high-resolution, low-noise image.
To it was fitted an eyepiece forming the image seen here, but rather than look through it, I took this snapshot holding a zoom P&S digital camera up to the eyepiece steady as I could and squeezed the trigger. I have real steady hands.
But these images are all green! What I finally did was to massively process the image to pull the data out of the noise-floor creating a clear picture with a back background. Then I processed the picture so that different brightness stars were each assigned a slightly different spectral colour according to their intensity. That gave the image the "color" you see here which makes it look much more like a regular RGB color image.
Hope you enjoyed! Thank you for letting me share this.
Now off to have a drink and a late night bowl of Nemesis! G,Night!
Here is another picture taken of outer space. It is a picture of what is called Messier 13 in Hercules, which is a globular cluster 22,000 light-years away. That is 22,000 X 6,000,000,000,000 miles away, or 1.32 X 10^17th power miles. Really far. A globular cluster is a giant ball of thousands of stars, this one about 160 light-years across. It is about 4.3 light-years to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. Globulars are huge stellar masses which mostly orbit the galaxy like fireflies circle a porch light. :mrgreen:
Nothing special about this picture in the bigger scheme of things, it only catches the brighter stars. If you Google M13 you will find much better pictures showing thousands of stars all packed in a ball! If you live way out in the country, you can just catch a hint of it with your naked eye in the sky as a tiny, fuzzy smudge of light. Here is the picture though, then I will tell you what makes this one interesting:
Pictures like this always involve long exposures as these objects are very small, very dim and very far away. This picture was taken with a 3,900mm super telephoto at f/11.
What sets it apart though is that it is a snapshot! It is a single half-second long hand-held snapshot.
How is that possible?
The picture was taken through a highest-quality Gen III photo-multiplier tube--- a special night vision lens fitted to the telescope that was originally made for an F-16 fighter jet so that the pilot could see his targets in the dark. It is restricted technology from the military not for export outside the country. It increases the light by about 50,000 times giving a very clean, sharp, high-resolution, low-noise image.
To it was fitted an eyepiece forming the image seen here, but rather than look through it, I took this snapshot holding a zoom P&S digital camera up to the eyepiece steady as I could and squeezed the trigger. I have real steady hands.
But these images are all green! What I finally did was to massively process the image to pull the data out of the noise-floor creating a clear picture with a back background. Then I processed the picture so that different brightness stars were each assigned a slightly different spectral colour according to their intensity. That gave the image the "color" you see here which makes it look much more like a regular RGB color image.
Hope you enjoyed! Thank you for letting me share this.
Now off to have a drink and a late night bowl of Nemesis! G,Night!
Pappy, I can totally dig where you are coming from. Worked his way up to Captain. The man WORKED. And WORKED. Worked his ass off to survive. My hat is off to him. That is what pisses me off so much about so many of the young these days--- they have no idea how soft they have it, how easy. Left school in the second grade to work to pay the bills? Damn, these days they won't even let farmers let their own kids work around the farm to help out with chores. Never mind building character--- it would be a violation of Child Labor Laws. Hrrrrrr.
Our leaders of tomorrow. :crying:
Warren, you certainly know your stuff. Quite true. In absolute terms, every piece of glass no matter how good will leave some signature! I have an optical window made by Cumberland Optics in Maryland used for the military, LE, FBI, etc., even space programs as a protective window over an optic. It is glass of the highest quality possible, ground to absolute parallelism and specially coated. The very best that can be made today, period. 7" in diameter, it cost over $2,000 when originally made.
I'd love to sell it. :mrgreen:
But I can tell you without a doubt that it left an impact on the image seen through it. A definite loss of quality (though still very good). I agree, nearly all of my lenses are fixed-focus. These days most lenses are zoom. I have three zooms (really good ones) for special situations, but you are totally right that a lens can only be really optimized for best performance at one point along its operating range. This becomes only more critical as the focal length is increased.
Often the effect of forcing an optic outside it optimal point of operation is seen either as distortion of the focal plane (petzval curvature) or color error (among others things or some combination of the above). I like you, you are a purist. You see things clearly in a very non-compromising way.
As to the front lens, if you are lucky, it takes a pretty big scratch to usually affect the final image quality usually and a simple scratch to the coatings will usually go unnoticed in the final result. But there are exceptions. A hard scratch can also act like a prism sending unfocused light into the image, especially if the front is hit by direct sunlight. My comments were of a general nature to the consumer, but to the pro looking for uncompromising results, there is no denying your statements.
Now for that smoke.
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