Fauxtog, Yes or No?

[pmatrisotto]

I’ve bought almost all of my equipment second hand.  I shoot a Rebel XTI.  the 70-200 f/2.8 is a Tamron that I bought off a friend of mine who is a professional photographer.   The only equipment I’ve bought brand new is the 50mm f/1.8 and my 430ex flash.  I’m definitely a hobbyist and don’t have any serious thoughts of “going pro”… eh, whatever, thanks for the critiques 😀

[dont.care]

uv filters are good for getting crimped on the end of your lens if you do hit your lens on something and shatter the element. 🙂

[CoastalTog]

UV filters also: diminish image quality, scratch the front element when dropped, are a pain to get off when bent, not needed for UV on digital cameras, are not guaranteed to protect your lens (seriously- write your UV lens manufacturer).

UV filters are good for: protection in a sandstorm and mudbogging.

Use a lens hood.  Problem solved.

[fstopper89]

When I bought my Rebel (used) a few years ago, I bought it with the 18-55 and the 55-250 kit lenses. Which both kind of suck, by the way. The 55-250 offers nice compression of DOF when zoomed in all the way but the downside is that lens also exhibits a terrible sharpness falloff so I do not use it for portraits at all anymore (decent for nature shots though). They each had a mid-grade UV filter on them. I found them to be useful when shooting images of water; they actually did help minimize the glare and instead I could shoot things that were below the water’s surface. Pretty cool for doing nature photography. And yes, there are for sure times when I’d like to have the extra protection on my nice lenses, but I should get in the habit more of using the hoods (I typically do not and am going to more this year).

But yeah, invest in good glass, but know how to use that good glass to it’s advantage.

[pmatrisotto]

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/28526660_9wQJhh#!i=2417848575&k=BNHnpDh

 

My latest pics of the kiddos…

[FauxFighters]

I will chime in on the whole UV filter/hood usefulness.  I don’t always carry a UV filter or hood on my lenses, especially if I am using a flash.  And actually I often times take off the filter when I’m about to do a shoot and all setup.  That said, I have had two lens accidents in my life, and both time they were saved by a UV filter/hood.

First time I was still quite a newbie.  I was picking up my stuff after going through a search line at an arena entrance and it fell to the concrete floor.  Thankfully this was my D40 and little kit lens, so this thing was really light.  Anyhow, it hit right on the filter ring edge and bent it just a little bit.  No damage and no big deal.

Second time was a lot worse.  D200 and my 17-35 2.8 lens.  Much heavier combo.  I had been offloading pictures and went to pick it up from next to my computer, not realizing the damn USB cable was still plugged in.  The cable did not come loose and the damn thing hit the floor hard.  Bent the UV filter ring good and busted my hood.  I could not unscrew the UV filter all the way and was pretty worried.  Took it to a guy in Durham who does mechanical work on cameras and he fixed it in 10 seconds.  Just bent it back in place and didn’t even charge me anything for it.  I bought a new loop and he even said using that same filter was still fine.  I shudder to think what would have happened to the lens itself if that hood and UV filter hadn’t been there to absorb the majority of that impact.

[Author]

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