Who uses UV filters in front of their lenses? regardless of price/quality of your lens.

And if so, who do you guys use? I was looking at a few 77mm Hoya UV filters and a CPOL along with a couple of step-up rings to add protection to my lenses.. maybe a ND filter down the road too!

Good? Bad? Don't care?

 

I use filters on all my glass for protective purposes! I also use ND for daytime shooting if needed (helps bring down the sky exposure when I shoot with off camera flash), and I have a CPL for my 50mm just for fun with natural light.

 

I flip-flopped over over my years of shooting. When I started I put a UV or Sky on top over everything, like it was a lens condom. Then I went through an anal purist phase where I wanted to the very best possible image. Fewer glass layers is always "better," even if "multi-coated." Then I relaxed a bit and learned to pixel-peep less. Now I just don't care, because my older Nikkor lenses survived awfully rough handling with minimal damage (I only killed one, lol). A few tiny front element scratches don't bother me.

I found a good lens hood is far better protection against my kind of rough handling than any filter.

But I won't make fun of anyone who choses to use filters as protection. Lenses are investments and I get it.

 

I'm going to the beach next week so I actually wanted to pick up a ND filter and I found one locally but he ended up backing out
I need to find me some kind of 77mm filter for protection against the oceanspray

 

uv for protection and i like polarizers for automotive, makes the glass looks good.

 

Depends on the situation. If I am in rough terrain (high humidity, seaspray, rough climbing, etc) I will slap on a filter. For daily shooting, not really. You are fine either way, and either way is correct. There is no "wrong."

 

I don't use UV filters but always shoot with the hood on. When needed I use B+W CP filters to cut down on reflections, 3-stop ND filter for longer exposures in daylight, and 2-stop GND for shots with wide dynamic range.

 

They only reduce image quality.
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011...th-bad-filters

I only use UV filters if I anticipate water or dirt to be hitting the lens. For general protection, hoods make more sense and actually do something useful.