I’ve always been almost fanatical about keeping clear filters (or UV, Skylight, etc.) attached to my lenses to protect the front element from dirt and scratches. Especially my expensive lenses. But I’m rethinking that idea, now.
A couple of days ago I was doing some product shots inside a retail store and came across this situation that you see below. The first image was with a good UV filter attached to the lens. As you can see, the strong light coming through the windows in the background caused a terrible flare, essentially ruining the image. I know, a lens hood would probably have helped but I didn’t have one and it’s always a trick to hold up your hand and shield the light without getting your hand in the shot, too.
So, I just removed the UV filter and got the image below. Not a 100% improvement, but I could at least probably salvage this photo. So now I’m thinking maybe I’ll just remove the filters from my lenses. Of course, this decision was made easier after reading Kurt Munger’s lens torture test. Read on …
Kurt took a cheap lens that was optically fine and subjected it to a series of tests involving making the front element dirty, smudged, scratched, and eventually destroyed. At each step of the process, he took a photo and looked for how the defects impacted the image. It’s actually quite surprising how much he had to do before he could find any evidence of trouble in the image. And it’s amazing how a destroyed and even missing front element could still yield usable, recognizable photos! Check out the photo below.
