Advice to buy filters and lens hood for canon 500D

[leo76uk]

Hi,

I am a newbie just starting to learn photography, I would like some advice on buying UV filters. I don’t want to spend too also. I came across the Hoya filters with different models and different price. I would like to know what the difference between them?

 Hoya 58mm HMC Haze UV Filter – Price £7.50

VS

Hoya 58mm Pro-1 Digital UV Screw in Filter – Price £20.00

Is it worth buying Hoya 58mm HMC Haze UV Filter as it is less expensive?

I also found out canon lens hood are bit expensive, and there are many sellers selling cheap lens hoods on eBay, is it worth buying.

Is there any difference between canon original and cheap lens hoods in tems of taking picture/picture quality?

Please some advice me, I really appreciate your help.

Thank you

leo


Lens I own at present:
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

[Flake]

Or you could miss out the UV / Haze filter altogether?  A lens hood will protect the front element much more than a filter will, the Canon ones are expensive, but the insides are matted with a flock to prevent reflection, if you buy a third party one make sure it's not just glossy plastic on the inside.

The filters you need are polariser, Neutral density, and perhaps ND grad for taming bright sunlight.  If you are going to use these filters you will have to take off any UV/Haze filter making them even more undesireable.  Final elements on a lens are tough things, it takes a lot to scratch them, you have more danger of damage from a broken filter glass!

[neuroanatomist]

The Pro-1 has better coatings and is more resistant to flare.  A cheap UV filter is worse than none.  I do use filters for protection, B+W MRC.

[gtog]

There are several factors to keep in mind when selecting filters for your lenses. For starters:

1) Multi-coating is GOOD thing! Avoid bare glass! The Hoya Pro-1 Digital UV will have better coatings than the HMC (Hoya multi-coated has 3 layers on each surface, iirc, while the Pro-1 has more).

2) Ring thickness -- most standard filter rings are 5 -7 mm thick and have threads on the front (handy to continue to use your clip-on lens caps since you shouldn't really be stacking filters on your lens). When using lenses wider than 24 mm FF (15 mm on APS-C) you should use a "slim" ringed filter, usually about 3 mm thick, so as not to vignette. The Hoya HMC has a standard thickness ring while the Hoya Pro-1 Digital is slim but still retains the front threading (many/most "slim" ring filters do not have front threading and you would need to use a slip-on type lens cap with them).

There are additional quality issues that usually do not show up in camera store specification lists such as: glass thickness; glass flatness; sturdiness of the ring holding the glass; ring threading; efficiency of the filtering unwanted light; efficiency of transmitting wanted light; etc. To a certain extent these will correlate with price.

I do use the better Hoya filters myself.

A few years ago LensTip.com published some tests of UV and polarizing filters that go into more detail:
http://www.lenstip.com/113.1-article-UV_filters_test.html
http://www.lenstip.com/120.1-article-UV_filters_test_-_supplement.html
http://www.lenstip.com/115.1-article-Polarizing_filters_test.html
http://www.lenstip.com/119.1-article-Polarizing_filters_test_-_supplement.html

Good Luck,
G

[Mt Spokane Photography]

If you need to priortize, get a hood first.  Unlike cheap filters, low cost hoods should not decrade IQ.  Also get a external flash.
 
+1 to Nuro's filter recommendation. 

[Pakman]

If you need to priortize, get a hood first.  Unlike cheap filters, low cost hoods should not decrade IQ.  Also get a external flash.
 
+1 to Nuro's filter recommendation.

+1, I once picked a friend's 5D2 and 24-70 without its lens hood up off a table by the camera strap. I pulled the camera up, and BAM the front of the lens smashed against the tabletop  My heart stopped for a few seconds when I looked at the broken glass, but very luckily it was only the filter that was destroyed. My opinion: get the lens hood and the nuro's filte recommendation, the Haze might have lower build quality although I haven't had any experience with it. From a protection perspective, the cost of a better filter is negligible to the peace-of-mind of having better protection.

[leo76uk]

I really appreciate for your reply. I read various forms and articles every one speaks different on their experience, one way which is good to know. Some mentioned in forums discussion that they don’t use filters and some don’t use lens hood, it’s everyone’s personal choice. I have made a choice to buy both.

I have decided I will invest money on good filters and buy decent lens hoods which are not cheap or expensive. 

Someone advised me online on a different forum to buy polarising filter for EF S 55-250mm, but I read an article and they say that “Rotating front element, problem with polarizing filter”.  Link: http://www.wildlife-pictures-online.com/canon-efs55-250mm-is-lens.html. Does Circular Polarising Filter are not good fit for this EF S 55-250?

I have made a short list to buy one of these listed below.

Hoya 58mm Circular Polarising Filter
Hoya 58mm Pro1 Digital Protector Filter
Hoya 58mm Pro-1 Digital UV Screw in Filter

I would also like to the difference between (what is the advantage of  Screw in Filter)

Pro1 Digital Protector Filter

VS

Pro-1 Digital UV Screw in Filter.

I have also purchased few DVD online to learn (DVD by Karl Taylor). Looks that his guy is good in teaching.

Many thanks

Leo

[Pakman]

I really appreciate for your reply. I read various forms and articles every one speaks different on their experience, one way which is good to know. Some mentioned in forums discussion that they don’t use filters and some don’t use lens hood, it’s everyone’s personal choice. I have made a choice to buy both.

I have decided I will invest money on good filters and buy decent lens hoods which are not cheap or expensive. 

Someone advised me online on a different forum to buy polarising filter for EF S 55-250mm, but I read an article and they say that “Rotating front element, problem with polarizing filter”.  Link: http://www.wildlife-pictures-online.com/canon-efs55-250mm-is-lens.html. Does Circular Polarising Filter are not good fit for this EF S 55-250?

I have made a short list to buy one of these listed below.

Hoya 58mm Circular Polarising Filter
Hoya 58mm Pro1 Digital Protector Filter
Hoya 58mm Pro-1 Digital UV Screw in Filter

I would also like to the difference between (what is the advantage of  Screw in Filter)

Pro1 Digital Protector Filter

VS

Pro-1 Digital UV Screw in Filter.

I have also purchased few DVD online to learn (DVD by Karl Taylor). Looks that his guy is good in teaching.

Many thanks

Leo

Glad you found inspiration. I would firstly like to point out that all the filters you are referring to are screw-in, and they attach to the front of the lens by the filter thread. I guess you were mislead by the different product titles, and I can certainly understand that!

I would suggest buying the Protector filter instead of the UV filter. Marketing states that it reduces some specific color inconsistencies, but to be honest it does not really have a detrimental effect to your photographs. Plus they are usually cheaper. In my opinion, you should put off buying a CPL (Polariser) as you lose some light entering the lens, making your shutter speed slower and increasing the chance of blurry shots. Also, the CPL might decrease your image quality. I bought a cheap CPL a while ago, and it reduced the image quality of my normally-sharp 70-200 to mush 

The quality of your filter should not matter too much at this stage unless you are making huge prints, which I highly doubt. Watch DigitalRev's video on YouTube titled something like "Pro vs Cheap Filter". It should help you in your choices.

Just FYI, CPL's also need a certain amount of practice to use properly, the front piece of glass turns, and by doing that selects the direction of the rays entering the lens. So you might need to continually adjust the filter depending on the conditions you are shooting in.

The best way to learn photography is to go out and practice. If you find "M" mode too difficult at first, you can just use Av or Tv. I'm sure your DVD will help you greatly in learning the basics of Photography!

[D.Sim]

Don't go for a filter just because its "cheaper" - if you want filters, don't be afraid of spending on a higher grade.

[gtog]

Regarding your UV vs Protector question: The digital SLR camera bodies we are talking about here have an anti-aliasing filter right in front of the sensor, which also has UV filtering characteristics. This means that from the sensor's vantage point, it can't tell the difference whether you have a UV or a Protector filter on the front of the lens. Feel free to chose the less expensive of the two (staying in the same Hoya Pro-1 Digital line they would be of the same quality).

Regarding your circular polarizing filter and rotating front element question: If the part of the lens where the filter threads are rotates during focusing and/or zooming, it becomes harder to use a polarizing filter as you would need to re-adjust the filter after every minor focus/zoom adjustment (and risk disturbing your focus/zoom setting). Generally, more expensive lenses will have a non-rotating front that alleviates this hassle with polarizing filters.