I had a case where the UV filter saved the lens.
Shooting a post national championship crowd reaction and there were lots of giant bonfires in the streets and tons of embers floating around the air. When I got back, I was stunned to see a number of holes burned into the coatings on the front of the filter. Had I not had the filter on, I imagine the coatings on the front element would've had nasty scar marks and the front element would've been a mess.
Also, once some little kid with insanely greasy pizza fingers reached out suddenly and pressed against the filter. It was coated with so much gloppy grease that it was almost unreal. That would've been a heck of a beast to get off the front element.
And when in deserts or the shore sometimes harsh grit gets on the lens and occasional there is some little bit that is sharp enough to leave a scratch if you wipe it off in the field without an ultra delicate blow off first (and even then it still happened once).
And sometimes salt is so much in the air, especially on the eastern seaboard, far less often on the west by a radical amount, that any surface is caked in salt like every 15 minutes at most and you need to constantly wipe in the field again and again and it's probably nice to have filters on in that scenario.
Sometimes you end up in a scenario where didn't expect that stuff to happen and/or just need to wipe even with a shirt or whatever and a filter can save the odd occasional scratch and pit.
So as he says, in special scenarios, it can help (as well as even the somewhat rare time otherwise). And sometimes you don't even know there will be a special scenario such as the post game celebration or perhaps the pizza finger one (although for the latter I guess you can assume when doing some PJ shooting and there is any chance there might remotely be kids around it's safer with the filter).
But they certainly add flare as he says, so in those conditions, unless something else insists on it, filters off.
And even with top filters sometimes there can be a slight loss in microcontrast, mostly it's all but imperceptible, but for whatever reason, with a few particular lenses the hit is just enough to make a small but real enough difference that it's maybe better to keep them off much of the time on those rare, few lenses.
So yeah I guess I more or less agree with the video, although I somewhat more lean towards having them on these days. I originally started out almost never using them. Not I tend to mostly use them, although have been shifting a bit back towards using them not quite as much unless it's known bad conditions.
Also, they can sometimes help complete the seal on some lenses so when shooting in rain I put them on.
Although he did forget resale value. If you can say there is not the slightest hint of any mark permanently left to front coatings or not even the finest scratch anywhere and that is was protected you can get more money on resale that can easily make up the filter cost. Although does such damage occur often enough to make up for the filter prices? Depends, also upon how many lenses you go through and sell. I've sold and swapped around quite a lot over the years.
