filter question

[vandergus]

I've tempered my position a little bit on this issue, but I'm still not crazy about UV filters. One things is a fact, though. If you have a cheap, uncoated UV filter on your lens, you will almost certainly encounter a situation where the filter will affect the image quality in a negative manner. And it will probably become apparent in the form of flare. And not the pretty kind that people like to include in sunny portraits. It's the ugly blobby kind that ruins pictures of sunsets and your kid's birthday party. The flare may not be this obvious, though. It may just result in a lowering of the overall contrast of the image. Here's an excellent article comparing the performance of coated and uncoated filters. It's kind of long so here's the summary. Cheap, uncoated filters suck. High quality coated ones perform very well, reducing image contrast only slightly under the most extreme circumstances. Great, I still don't want to pay for one, but that's just me.

So if spending $100 on a UV filter buys you some peace of mind, I'm not going to try to convince you not to. It's a personal choice. But at least spend a few more bucks and get something that won't end up affecting your photos. I just wanted to introduce a few concrete examples into a discussion that often lacks any real evidence.