Filter for protection…?

BrianOdell wrote:

I have a “carry-everywhere” m200 that I’ve been using a lot lately with the 22 & 32mm lenses. Should I be using protective UV filters, or skip them? If yes, which brands are decent that won’t degrade image quality, and that won’t break the bank?

Thanks!

I use top tier Hoya UV filters on almost all of my lenses. The naming for their top tier has changed over the years. It used to be S-HMC, now it's HD3. A hood cannot protect your front element from sand, rain, spilled liquids, etc. And over the years I have ended up with small scratches on filters that otherwise would have been on front elements. Filters are also necessary to complete weather sealing on several (not all) Canon L lenses. If you never shoot in harsh conditions you will probably get away with not using protective filters. I shoot in harsh conditions.

The one lens I don't have filter protection on is the EF-M 22mm since the filter is such a large fraction of the lens price. And I never shoot my M+22mm in harsh conditions. If I owned the 32mm, it would likely be protected.

With one exception I have never been able to find any image degradation. That includes looking for it (testing on/off under an array of test conditions). And taking the filter off in the field when I suspected it of causing a problem, only to discover nothing changed. (Think night shots with many in frame and off axis point light sources causing flare.)

The one exception was an individual HD3 filter shooting into the sunset on my 16-35 f/4L IS which resulted in extra flare. But I could not reproduce the effect with other filters. That one event caused me to retest all my lens/filter combos and find nothing else. I meant to follow up with Hoya at the time but never got around to it. I've shot with enough of their filters over the years that I suppose one bad one had to get through QC.