09-06-2010, 11:17 PM
[quote name='Brightcolours' timestamp='1283795786' post='2544']
That is what Iove about internet, all these internet myths that keep on going around.
[color="#0000ff"]
Yep. Like the one about filters that filters do not protect a lens <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />. As I mentioned in another thread, among others, my camera retailer friend, who sees on average at least 1 damaged filter or lens a week, has a different experience to yours.[/color]
[color="#ff0000"]No, he does not.
[color="#008000"]Interesting statement that. You can't know and don't know.
[/color]
This reminds me of a guy in out country (the netherlands) promoting on a paper/research on how caffeine free coffee was bad for you heart. He noted that in a group that drank caffeine free coffee there was more heart trouble than in the group that drank coffee with caffeine.
Well.. duuuuh... which people tend to (more often) drink coffee without caffeine? Right. The people with poor health.
Faulty research from the start.
Now lets look into this camera retailer friend.
What does he get in damaged lenses? According to him and you, lenses with damaged filters and lenses with damaged front elements.
Now... how much lenses does he get without damaged front elements and without damaged filters?
Right... none.
[color="#000000"]
[color="#008000"]To quote you: "duuuuuh".
Actually, he also gets lenses which are damaged without having had a knock. He also repairs lenses and cameras, or sends them to the manufacturer.
[/color][/color]
The conclusions he is making are not thought through, as it excludes the last group, of people who bumped a lens, and the lens was fine, and since it had no filter, it has no broken filter.[/color]
[color="#008000"]If that is what you want to believe, that's fine with me. Again, this is what you believe and assume, not something you can prove by independent tests. See below.[/color]
[color="#0000ff"]
[color="#0000ff"][/color]The problem with this whole debate is whether you believe it or not. I believe a filter protects a lens, because I have seen many examples where it did. You don't believe in it, good for you. You also don't use a blower I gather, just a microfiber cloth plus some solution. Fine, you have been very lucky. I once SAW somebody making a scratch on a lens with a sand grain, because he was too lazy to blow it clean first. Let me say, he wasn't very pleased.
Ah well, whatever, really ... <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> I didn't want to get involved in another pro-contra filter debate, and now I did anyway <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.
Kind regards, Wim
P.S.:removed all quote marks, my comments in blue, as I had too many quote blocks.
[/color]
[color="#ff0000"]
You say you have seen many examples where it did. The only way you can have seen that for real... is where you had a control lens having the same "accident" and where the lens got damaged, where the lens without filter got saved.
[color="#008000"]Yep. Same model lens, several actually. Invariably the ones without filter had to be sent back to the manufacturer or importer, while the filter protected ones only needed the filter ring removed, a bit of cleaning, and a new filter put on. Generally it is the consumer grade lenses however, come to think of it. Often the kit lens.
BTW, don't start with control sets and scientific tests where you yourself didn't do any of these tests to prove your own points either.
[/color]
See, the problem is that we get a scare with a lens, and then think "phewww... glad i had that filter on it".
But we don't think about if that is a right thing to say. As the video I linked to shows... coatings are NOT so easily scratched, and lens elements are HARD to actually break. So... whenever a filter breaks... it just does not absorbs enough energy to save the front element (It is only a thin plate of glass...).
[color="#000000"]
[color="#008000"]Did you do any tests on this? With or without filter? You actually say I did not do any controlled test, but neither did you. So who is spreading internet myths here? "Fortunately" (it isn't for the owner of course) I saw damaged lenses with and without filter mounted of the same type, which were damaged. As I said, the lenses without filter invariably had to be sent back to importer or manufacturer for repair, not so the ones with a filter mounted.
BTW, don't argue stating that people didn't follow a rigorous test procedure if you yourself didn't either to "prove" the opposite. This is a non-sequitur, and becomes a yes-no debate rather than a discussion with proper arguments to underpin a theory or statement. Do note that I am speaking from empirical evidence here. I believe what I see, well, if it isn't in print or on the internet anyway. <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Of course I can be wrong, but you'd have to prove it, with proper arguments.
[/color][/color]
If the front element is fine, it would most probably have been fine without filter. Front elements getting scratched from glass filter splinters is real, though. That happens.
[color="#008000"]Have you tested how often? And in a control test what would have happened to a lens without filter mounted? I guess not.
[/color]
So... while there is a slight chance a front element absorbs just enough energy to prevent front element damage, at the same time it can be the cause of front element scratches.
[color="#008000"]You need to rethink that IMO. The filter already absorbed some energy, so the lens gets less of an impact. Physics will tell you that if there is damage when the filter is broken, there would have been more damage if there hadn't been a filter, all else being equal. It is about the sum of forces, and that means that the impact will be higher on the front element itself if there is no filter, as the filter will absorb a fair amount of forces.
There is another aspect I mentioned, which is the extra rigidity the filter rings gives the front of the lens barrel, which often is made of plastic or a relatively soft metal. That alone prevents a lot of damage. What you will actually find is that the lens barrel is deformed after impact, but not so when a filter was mounted. When no filter was mounted it doesn't necessarily mean that the front lens is damaged as such, but that the lens is out of whack, decentered badly, can't take a filter anymore, won't focus anymore, etc. A filter prevents a lot of this damage.
[/color]I clean my lenses with a soft lens brush. After that, I clean them with a micro fiber cloth and lens cleaning fluid spray (all from a funny little Zeiss set).
What is also real, is filter caused image degradation when bright light hits the filter. Expensive multicoated filters are better than cheap ones, but all show a degradation under those conditions.
To me, the perceived advantages do not in any way weigh up to the real disadvantages.
[color="#000000"]
[/color][color="#008000"]This is the point: to you it isn't. To me it is. And I speak from personal experience.
[/color]
And yes, these debates are "pointless" in that die hard filter users never give in (nor will non-filter users), but they are informative to newcomers.
Although, it must be said, that often you do find posts of former diehard filter users who stop after years of using them after having discovered that even the expensive filters at times seem to mess up the AF accuracy
[color="#000000"][color="#008000"]As I said before, even that last statement is very questionable. In the case of Canon lenses the 100-400L is often mentioned as a lens that shouldn't have afilter when using AF. Well, I am pretty sure that is a user problem, and not a lens or filter problem. I have tested 3 100-400s, and owned 2 (still own one), and certainly in the beginning it is difficult, especially in difficult lighting, to get focusing right with this lens close to or at the long end. Once you get used to that, the presence of a filter suddenly doesn't seem to impact AF anymore. Isn't it just weird?[/color]
[/color]
and gave artifacts in images.[color="#000000"]
[/color][color="#008000"]Those are less damaging than an impact that renders a lens unusable when it could have been saved by that filter, and happens probably as often <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />. Not to mention the glass of beer that splashed over the front of the lens. Or the sandblasting the lens received on the beach or in the desert (sand does damage after all <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />).
[/color]
Or saw that funny youtube video <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />[/color]
[color="#008000"]No, I didn't. It's youtube, not mytube <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />. Actually, I hate youtube. I prefer stills over video.
In the end, to a beginner or to a person who wants to be extra careful when it comes to lens protection, a good quality UV or protect filter is very useful. To those who know what they are doing and are prepared to run the extra risk, they'll do without that filter. I belong to the extra careful category, because I have seen what can happen, and I have had a lens protected by a filter a few times myself. And that includes a few incidents during the period I shot film, where a UV-filter actually was used as a UV-filter, rather than a protect filter.
Kind regards, Wim
P.S.: too many quotes again, so gree this time <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.[/color]
That is what Iove about internet, all these internet myths that keep on going around.
[color="#0000ff"]
Yep. Like the one about filters that filters do not protect a lens <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />. As I mentioned in another thread, among others, my camera retailer friend, who sees on average at least 1 damaged filter or lens a week, has a different experience to yours.[/color][color="#ff0000"]No, he does not.
[color="#008000"]Interesting statement that. You can't know and don't know.
[/color]
This reminds me of a guy in out country (the netherlands) promoting on a paper/research on how caffeine free coffee was bad for you heart. He noted that in a group that drank caffeine free coffee there was more heart trouble than in the group that drank coffee with caffeine.
Well.. duuuuh... which people tend to (more often) drink coffee without caffeine? Right. The people with poor health.
Faulty research from the start.
Now lets look into this camera retailer friend.
What does he get in damaged lenses? According to him and you, lenses with damaged filters and lenses with damaged front elements.
Now... how much lenses does he get without damaged front elements and without damaged filters?
Right... none.
[color="#000000"]
[color="#008000"]To quote you: "duuuuuh".
Actually, he also gets lenses which are damaged without having had a knock. He also repairs lenses and cameras, or sends them to the manufacturer.
[/color][/color]
The conclusions he is making are not thought through, as it excludes the last group, of people who bumped a lens, and the lens was fine, and since it had no filter, it has no broken filter.[/color]
[color="#008000"]If that is what you want to believe, that's fine with me. Again, this is what you believe and assume, not something you can prove by independent tests. See below.[/color]
[color="#0000ff"]
[color="#0000ff"][/color]The problem with this whole debate is whether you believe it or not. I believe a filter protects a lens, because I have seen many examples where it did. You don't believe in it, good for you. You also don't use a blower I gather, just a microfiber cloth plus some solution. Fine, you have been very lucky. I once SAW somebody making a scratch on a lens with a sand grain, because he was too lazy to blow it clean first. Let me say, he wasn't very pleased.
Ah well, whatever, really ... <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> I didn't want to get involved in another pro-contra filter debate, and now I did anyway <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.Kind regards, Wim
P.S.:removed all quote marks, my comments in blue, as I had too many quote blocks.
[/color]
[color="#ff0000"]
You say you have seen many examples where it did. The only way you can have seen that for real... is where you had a control lens having the same "accident" and where the lens got damaged, where the lens without filter got saved.
[color="#008000"]Yep. Same model lens, several actually. Invariably the ones without filter had to be sent back to the manufacturer or importer, while the filter protected ones only needed the filter ring removed, a bit of cleaning, and a new filter put on. Generally it is the consumer grade lenses however, come to think of it. Often the kit lens.
BTW, don't start with control sets and scientific tests where you yourself didn't do any of these tests to prove your own points either.
[/color]
See, the problem is that we get a scare with a lens, and then think "phewww... glad i had that filter on it".
But we don't think about if that is a right thing to say. As the video I linked to shows... coatings are NOT so easily scratched, and lens elements are HARD to actually break. So... whenever a filter breaks... it just does not absorbs enough energy to save the front element (It is only a thin plate of glass...).
[color="#000000"]
[color="#008000"]Did you do any tests on this? With or without filter? You actually say I did not do any controlled test, but neither did you. So who is spreading internet myths here? "Fortunately" (it isn't for the owner of course) I saw damaged lenses with and without filter mounted of the same type, which were damaged. As I said, the lenses without filter invariably had to be sent back to importer or manufacturer for repair, not so the ones with a filter mounted.
BTW, don't argue stating that people didn't follow a rigorous test procedure if you yourself didn't either to "prove" the opposite. This is a non-sequitur, and becomes a yes-no debate rather than a discussion with proper arguments to underpin a theory or statement. Do note that I am speaking from empirical evidence here. I believe what I see, well, if it isn't in print or on the internet anyway. <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> Of course I can be wrong, but you'd have to prove it, with proper arguments.[/color][/color]
If the front element is fine, it would most probably have been fine without filter. Front elements getting scratched from glass filter splinters is real, though. That happens.
[color="#008000"]Have you tested how often? And in a control test what would have happened to a lens without filter mounted? I guess not.
[/color]
So... while there is a slight chance a front element absorbs just enough energy to prevent front element damage, at the same time it can be the cause of front element scratches.
[color="#008000"]You need to rethink that IMO. The filter already absorbed some energy, so the lens gets less of an impact. Physics will tell you that if there is damage when the filter is broken, there would have been more damage if there hadn't been a filter, all else being equal. It is about the sum of forces, and that means that the impact will be higher on the front element itself if there is no filter, as the filter will absorb a fair amount of forces.
There is another aspect I mentioned, which is the extra rigidity the filter rings gives the front of the lens barrel, which often is made of plastic or a relatively soft metal. That alone prevents a lot of damage. What you will actually find is that the lens barrel is deformed after impact, but not so when a filter was mounted. When no filter was mounted it doesn't necessarily mean that the front lens is damaged as such, but that the lens is out of whack, decentered badly, can't take a filter anymore, won't focus anymore, etc. A filter prevents a lot of this damage.
[/color]I clean my lenses with a soft lens brush. After that, I clean them with a micro fiber cloth and lens cleaning fluid spray (all from a funny little Zeiss set).
What is also real, is filter caused image degradation when bright light hits the filter. Expensive multicoated filters are better than cheap ones, but all show a degradation under those conditions.
To me, the perceived advantages do not in any way weigh up to the real disadvantages.
[color="#000000"]
[/color][color="#008000"]This is the point: to you it isn't. To me it is. And I speak from personal experience.
[/color]
And yes, these debates are "pointless" in that die hard filter users never give in (nor will non-filter users), but they are informative to newcomers.
Although, it must be said, that often you do find posts of former diehard filter users who stop after years of using them after having discovered that even the expensive filters at times seem to mess up the AF accuracy
[color="#000000"][color="#008000"]As I said before, even that last statement is very questionable. In the case of Canon lenses the 100-400L is often mentioned as a lens that shouldn't have afilter when using AF. Well, I am pretty sure that is a user problem, and not a lens or filter problem. I have tested 3 100-400s, and owned 2 (still own one), and certainly in the beginning it is difficult, especially in difficult lighting, to get focusing right with this lens close to or at the long end. Once you get used to that, the presence of a filter suddenly doesn't seem to impact AF anymore. Isn't it just weird?[/color]
[/color]
and gave artifacts in images.[color="#000000"]
[/color][color="#008000"]Those are less damaging than an impact that renders a lens unusable when it could have been saved by that filter, and happens probably as often <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />. Not to mention the glass of beer that splashed over the front of the lens. Or the sandblasting the lens received on the beach or in the desert (sand does damage after all <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />).[/color]
Or saw that funny youtube video <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />[/color][color="#008000"]No, I didn't. It's youtube, not mytube <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />. Actually, I hate youtube. I prefer stills over video.In the end, to a beginner or to a person who wants to be extra careful when it comes to lens protection, a good quality UV or protect filter is very useful. To those who know what they are doing and are prepared to run the extra risk, they'll do without that filter. I belong to the extra careful category, because I have seen what can happen, and I have had a lens protected by a filter a few times myself. And that includes a few incidents during the period I shot film, where a UV-filter actually was used as a UV-filter, rather than a protect filter.
Kind regards, Wim
P.S.: too many quotes again, so gree this time <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />.[/color]
Gear: Canon EOS R with 3 primes and 2 zooms, 4 EF-R adapters, Canon EOS 5 (analog), 9 Canon EF primes, a lone Canon EF zoom, 2 extenders, 2 converters, tubes; Olympus OM-D 1 Mk II & Pen F with 12 primes, 6 zooms, and 3 Metabones EF-MFT adapters ....