RF 50mm f1.2 users (and probably EF version as well), do you use a protective filter on it?

jwilliams wrote:

tkbslc wrote:

jwilliams wrote:

I never use a protective filter on any lens. Ever. In fact my 50 1.2 is the last lens I'd ever do that to if somehow I was forced to start the practice. It has the best optics of any lens I have ever owned. Why would I want to screw that up by adding something else to the front of it that the only possible effect would be to degrade the image quality of such a fine lens?

The "possible effect" here is protecting the lens. Nobody buys a protective filter to improve image quality.

Lens hoods and lens caps are for protection. Filters are for changing the way the image is recorded.

And also sometimes for protection. Are you going to pretend that a large number of photographers don't use protective filters or that they don't exist?

Without a doubt more money is wasted on these devices than anything else in the photography world. 99.99% of people who buy these things will never get any benefit from them.

Same could be said for any kind of insurance.

In 30+ years of photography I've never used any sort of protective filter. I've never managed to damage any lens, but once did load a camera/lens to someone and it came back with a chip in the front lens element. Lesson learned, don't lend your camera gear out to others.

One could argue the other lesson is that maybe a filter would have helped protect that lens.

I've probably owned 50 or more lenses over the years. A good 'protective' filter for these would be in the $50 -100 range. I'd spend $2,500 - $5,000 to save that one lens from a chip. Not such a good investment. The lens was 100% usable and I probably lost an extra $50 when I sold it because of the chip, so barely enough to buy one single filter.

Nobody implied you need to get a filter for every lens.  Why bother putting a $70 filter on a $300 lens, for example?  That's too expensive of an insurance plan.   I never bother with cheap lenses, as the risk math doesn't work out.

But the 50L is a $2300 lens.  A good filter to protect that investment only adds 3% to the cost.  That's a whole different scenario.