gshocked said:
Just be aware of how their scoring is derived. One factor (25% of the scoring) is how effective the filter is at blocking UV light, and that is irrelevant for dSLR users. In fact, in one sense better UV blocking is worse, because some of the deep blue light is also lost.
Hoya, Zeiss, and B+W all publish their transmission curves. No filter has a perfectly vertical cutoff on a transmission curve - most good commercial multicoated filters that 'block' wavelengths ramp from ~0% transmission to their max of >99% over a 25-125 nm range (although some of the longpass and bandpass filters I use in microscopy are close to vertical, with a slope covering <5 nm - and they come with a price tag commensurate with that performance).
The Zeiss has the steepest slope of the three, ramping up over the 410-435 nm range (it's cutting out some blue light, which is considered to start at 400 nm). The Hoya has the least steep slope, running from 350-460 nm or so, meaning its passing some UV in the 350-399 nm range, and blocking a bit of blue light as well. The B+W is intermediate, ramping up from 360-430 nm, but at 400nm (the start of the visible range) the B+W UV transmission is >90%, and the sensitivity of the CFA blue channel on the sensor is very low below 420nm anyway.
Of course, while that might be good to know if you're shooting film, none of that matters if you've got a dSLR. The dSLR's sensor is insensitive to UV light, so there's no difference between a UV filter (be it the 410 nm Zeiss or the 360 nm B+W) and a clear filter that fully passes the long end of the UV spectrum. I have empirically tested my 7D and 5DII for UV sensitivity with calibrated UV/Vis light sources and some of those precise bandpass filters mentioned above (running a lab that has such equipment comes in handy sometimes) - there's no need for a UV filter. I do use UV filters for protection (B+W MRC or Nano), instead of clear - but that's only because every time I've needed to buy one, the UV version was cheaper than the clear one (although that's not the case with all brands or in all geographies).
For the Lenstip tests, I recommend looking at the test results, not the summary table. For example, compare the top scoring Hoya with the 3rd place B+W - the Hoya scored 90% (36/40), the B+W scored 83% (33/40). But, when you look at the subscores which they provide that sum to a possible 40 pts, you see that B+W loses 1 pt for visible transmission, 1 pt for flare, and 5 pts for UV transmission. The Hoya loses 2 pts for visible transmission, 2 pts for flare, and gets 10/10 for UV transmission. But for a dSLR user, UV transmission is irrelevant...meaning that
for a dSLR user, the B+W is the better filter according to Lenstip's testing, since it's better on both visible light transmission and flare.
) smudge crust is only on the filter, not the lenses front element.
