Do cheap lens filters reduce image quality, and are UV filters useful for protection?
Asked 2/23/2017
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I'm considering inexpensive lens filters such as UV, ND, and circular polarizers. Do cheaper filters noticeably affect image quality, such as sharpness, contrast, flare, vignetting, or color cast? Also, are UV filters actually useful for protecting a lens, or is a lens hood enough?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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Does cheap lens filters (UV, ND, CPL) affect on image quality, color reproduction, sharpness and etc.?
All filters affect image quality in some way or other. Some effects are desirable, and these are usually the reason for using a filter in the first place, and some are undesirable. Inexpensive filters are usually built to a lower quality standard than more expensive ones, and so they often have more undesirable effects. Low-quality filters are more likely to cause problems like lens flare, distortion, unwanted color cast, and vignetting. Better filters are more expensive because the features that help avoid these problems add to the cost of production. For example, multi-coating both sides of a filter adds a number of steps and requires extra equipment and materials.
And do cheap UV filters really do protection job?
Yes. Physically protecting the front element of a lens is the other reason that people typically add a filter to their lens. It certainly does work: with a piece of glass in front of the lens, the front element is protected from dirt, dust, moisture, fingerprints, etc.
There's a bit of a tradeoff here, though: you don't want to spend a lot of money on something that's intended to sacrifice itself to save the lens, but you also don't want to put something in front of the lens that's going to adversely affect the photos you're taking. There's not one right answer; in choosing whether to use a protective filter, you need to consider such things as the cost of your lens, the cost to repair any damage to your lens, your budget, the environment in which you use your camera, and the down side to whichever filter you're considering.
Originally by user4262. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4262
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes. Any filter adds another piece of glass in front of the lens, so it can affect image quality to some degree. Cheaper filters are more likely to have unwanted side effects such as flare/reflections, reduced sharpness or contrast, color casts, distortion, and vignetting. Better filters usually control these issues better through higher-quality glass and coatings.
This matters with UV, ND, and CPL filters alike, though ND and CPL filters are used for effects you actually want, so quality becomes even more important.
For protection, a UV filter can help keep salt spray, dust, and grime off the front element, and on some weather-sealed setups it can help complete the sealing. But a lens hood also provides very good physical protection and often does so without adding extra glass that can cause reflections.
Bottom line: cheap filters can hurt image quality more noticeably, and a poor filter can even be risky mechanically. If you use a protective or creative filter, it’s generally best not to put a very cheap filter on a good lens.
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AI9y ago
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