Hi all,

I have UV filters on all of my lenses. I've just bought myself a polarizing lens and it struck me, do I still need the UV on to protect the sensor or will the polarizing suffice?

Thanks all.

Not really sure I understand that.

Mark

Sorry, my bad, is the UV lens to protect the front of the lens then? Will the Polarizing offer UV protection too? I'm just a bit wary of placing unnecessary glass on the lens if I don't need to.

Right, no, polariser filters do not filter UV very well, if at all.
I think there are Polar+UV filters out there, but I'm not terribly up on filters so someone with a greater knowledge will have to help out on that.

Mark

I think the point of a UV filter is that it protects the front element of glass on the lens, and people use UVs simply because they affect the image the least. Hoya make protection filters, which are as see-through as you can get.

Ah, I see. Thanks Edd, Mark. So it's only damage protection for the front of the lens (i.e. cheaper to replace) and not so much actual UV protection then? In which case I can leave it off if I'm using the polarising. Thanks guys.

Most of the UV filters say in the blurb that they help to reduce hazy images that the UV produces. I've no idea if and when UV becomes a problem though.

I think UV becomes more of a problem at altitude, where the atmosphere is thinner and generally not as well equipped to protect from the effects of the sun.

Mark

Or on a bright sunny day, which we should be safe from here.

I understand the cleaning protection thing, being much happier to clean a filter 50 times rather than the lens once. But a knock great enough to break the filter will probably do some damage to the front element, even if not as much.

I all ways leave the uv filter ON ( normally use a skylight 1a/1b on my lenses )

when using the polariser or any other filter

Can I just say that there's an argument to suggest that putting cheap filter glass infront of decent lens glass is going to degrade image quality. I guess its personal preference. I dont use UV or 'protection' filters and only put the polariser on when I need it tbh.

I have a UV filter that sits on my DSLR, but usually a PL sits on the front of the 35mm.
For the reasons mentioned above really - protection, bit of haze killing. The work kit rarely has anything on the front of it, and I'd say the image quality suffers, if anything, as a result of it always having been used that way. We're right next to the sea, and it's been cleaned a lot. A UV filter on the front of it from new would probably have helped keep the lens nice. YMMV.

I try to get genuine Nikon L37C UV filters for my kit as I agree strongly that putting cheap glass in front of an expensive lens is kind of defeating the object (pun unintended). However, I can't afford to replace my lenses so I have to compromise and the best I know to do is by the best filters I can; they're still much cheaper than the lens they protect.

I did break a filter once, saving the lens (it was unmarked and worked fine for years after). I was climbing down out of a tree and the camera swung into the broken end of a branch I was very happy to buy a new filter, not a lens.

For some reason I have a thing with dirty optical stuff. I'll quite happily kill someone who dares put a post-it note on my screen, handle my sunnies as though I was disarming a nuclear warhead, and almost always use a lens cap when not shooting. Beneath the lens cap I have a UV filter and have only had to clean that a couple of times since I brought it last September. Thank god I don't have to clean the lens!

A £70 filter sitting in front of a £1000+ lens seems to be a pretty good insurance policy if you ask me.