Jim Mueller writes:
But do these filters, no matter how prestine, detract from the image
quality? What do you pros do? Do you shoot without Skylight, UV, etc.
filters?
What's the difference between Hoya Skylight (0) and (1B)?
===================================================
any extra glass surface detracts from image quality a little bit,
but not alot or people would rarely use any filters.
generally, filters should be replaced with new ones every several years
as microscopic scratches and cleaning marks as well as loosening of the
glass in the rim, or slight bending of the threads of the filter
can detract from image quality. The glass must be exactly
perpendicular to the lens axis or it will soften the image. hence, I don't
think used filters are very worthwhile.
I generally avoid Tiffen filters. I've gotten so many of the
new out of the box with loose glass that I just don't think they
are very well made or have good quality control.
I like Hoya filters for a lower end brand, and B&W for a higher end
brand. I like Heliopan polarizers.
Some manufacturers don't use optical glass for their filters. Heliopan
and B&W make a special point that they use Schott glass as if this means
their filters have been blessed by German optical wizards. In my opinion, any
filter made to high quality standards with optical glass is fine. Schott
is just the name of the optical glass supplier in Germany who supplies
raw glass to Zeiss, Leitz, Schneider, Heliopan, etc. Japanese optical glass is
good enough for Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Canon, etc. for their lenses, so it's
certainly good enough for filters, and Hoya claims they exclusively use
optical glass in their filters.
I'm not so sure about Tiffen. they don't really make a claim either way.
UV is a neutral filter. The warming series runs: 1A, 1B, 81A, 81B, 81C,
etc. so 1A is slightly warmer than UV, and 1B slightly warmer than 1A,
but it is slight. You might notice the slightly pink color to the glass
of a 1A or 1B if you look carefully.
There are two schools of thought about leaving a skylight filter on your
lens all the time. school 1 would say "I paid good money for top quality
lenses, and I'm not going to degrade the image with a filter on every shot
I take". school 2 would say "I don't care if I damage a filter trying
to clean it, as it is cheap to replace, but I don't want cleaning marks
in the coatings of my lenses". pros tend to be in school 1 and amateurs
tend to be in school 2. Professional photographers usually replace all
their equipment every few years anyway, and they won't get that much more
for it if they left UV filters on all the lenses. I suspect they would
leave such a filter on a spendy lens like a 600/4 or 400/2.8 etc., but
probably not run of the mill lenses.
Just a few thoughts.
Joseph
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