
I now have a few lens in my collections but when I buy UV filters, I didn't pay much attention. I was not totally ignorant about it to get a cheapo generic ones though.. So I bought mostly the Hoya recommended by the shop.
Exception is that on my EF 50mm f1.4, there's a canon UV filter. I bought it off B&H together with the lens as I believed Canon will made the good filter for their lens. It may only half true.
I faced the problem when I was trying to capture the gig at the Sandwiches I posted earlier. In the low light condition of the pub, the filter was acting like a focusing screen.. I can see another image of spots and other lights faintly on different areas than the real image. Its totally distracting and its spoiling the image. In the end, I had to take off the filter and took the photos to eliminate those reflections.
When I got home, I started to look more closely into my UV filters I have. Most of them doesn't seems to have multi-coating.
Well, I should have known earlier. I was wearing glasses since I was 12. And I hated those early days when my glasses didn't have multi-coating.. Its very hard to see at night because of those extra reflections and glares. And when I was driving at night I have to pay extra attention because I can barely see the road when there's another car's head light or even bright lamp posts in my view. Only when I got my first multi-coated glasses, I can see clearly at night.
Its the same problem with the filters. I was putting a non-coated type UV filters and they are causing reflections and flares. You wont notice much until you started to shoot in very low light like me or pointing at a bright light source.
Here's some photo I took with Canon UV filter in front of my 50mm lens and without filter.
I boosted gamma a little in Photoshop to highlight the problem.

I have a Marumi DHG UV filter for my Kit lens.. I bought it cheaply with my Kit lens. But when i check it , it have multi-coating on it. So, I put in on my lens and took this photo.
As you can see, it's pretty good .. there's still a faint reflection.. but its not too bad.. And for a filter that cost NZ$20, its really good.
Well.. that's my findings on the UV filters.. I hope its useful for you. Untill I get a Heliopan or B+W one, I cant tell how good they are.. but I'll post again when I got one.
Cheers.
1 comment:
oh i'm on the verge of choosing the wrong one ..thank you so much !
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