UV Filter or No UV Filter

The UV filter is supposed to block ultraviolet rays. This was perhaps important for shooting film but most today’s digital image sensors are not very sensitive to UV. Most of the UV is blocked by the glass in the lens anyway. So often these UV filters are recommended by people as a lens protection mechanism.

At beginning, I bought into this. After all, it costs more to repair a scratched front element than a filter. I have never bumped my lens into anything or gotten a scratch of any significance but the filter really kept the front element particle free. I found myself comfortable wiping down the filter even with my shirt sleeves  when I cannot find lens tissue or lens pen. I wouldn’t do that with the lens front element. I know that small scratches will hardly cause any image degradation. However I may have trouble selling my lens with scratches on the front element because not everyone understand this…

Later I realized that any UV filter you put on your lens degrades the image. Better UV filters will degrade the image quality less. However good UV filters can be really expensive. The thin piece of glass may not be able to really protect the lens either in a catastrophic accident.

I had a UV filter causing strange problems on my Sigma 100-300 f/4 when I was taking photos of the Moon. As you can see from the following image, there is a ghost image caused by the UV filter. I believe this is due to reflections from the backside of the UV filter in certain circumstances.

Ghost caused by UV filter.

Ghost caused by UV filter.

Now I have taken UV filters off my lenses. I have decided to use it only when the environment I am going to shoot in makes it necessary.

Further readings:

Posted in: Accessories on October 12th, 2008. Trackback URI
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Comments

  • Jeff

    Thanks for someone else piping up about this. I used to keep a UV filter on my lenses at all times for protection and always wondered why I got stray light all over my pictures. I always wrote it off as ambient light from the city and had given up on shooting certain scenes because of this. The night I discovered it was my UV filter creating that stray light, I nearly threw myself into the road thinking about how easily the problem was corrected. To this day, I still feel stupid, but at least I can have a little more framing freedom without having to think about those stray lights.

    Anyone who recommends putting a UV filter on your lens should also provide a warning about this situation. Thanks for saying something about it.

    • http://dptnt.com picmax

      Jeff,

      You are welcome. I think more and more people are realizing this but there are still many more who need to figure this out. That's why I want to get the information out to others.

      Thanks.

      Max

  • Michael

    Actually, while you do not need to use a UV filter on your new digital camera lenses, I still keep a Nikon NC filter on my lenses for protection. It also does not alter what you see in anyway like a UV filter.

    I had one save one of my lenses this summer when I was in a rocky area and my camera fell. I only had to get a new Nikon NC filter, not a new lens.

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