Friday
Jan272012
Lean on Me
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 15:35 ;)
Round and Round │ NEX-7 + Carl Zeiss Biogon T* 35mm F2.0 ZM │ 35mm F2.0 1/13s ISO3200
tagged Amsterdam, Biogon 35mm F2.0, Carl Zeiss, bicycle
Amsterdam, Biogon 35mm F2.0, Carl Zeiss, bicycle
Reader Comments (7)
Hi Björn,
I'm wondering what's that sort of ghosting in the lower part of the picture...
Were you shooting thru the window of a car, or perahps ghosting from a filter on the lens?
cheers
Hi Corrado,
No I was actually outside in the rain with my bicycle. There is a filter on the lens and it's also possible that there were drops on the filter, so I wouldn't read too much into this image. Do you prefer not to use filters?
Hi,
just curious.
I've been using UV (or 'protector') filters on all of my lenses forever, until recently I've found some of them produced funny ghosting effects on some images, especially when coping with bright light sources in shadowy environment - but that didn't sound like was the case of your photo here, so I was curious as to what could have caused that effect (provided you didn't make it on purpose in PP, that is).
For the record, I'm still torn between putting some sort of protection on my lenses, and risk ghosting, and leaving them au naturel, and thus risk damage. Hell of a dilemma :)
cheers from Italy
PS: is there a way of registering as a user on your blog? couldn't find that option anywhere...
oops, I've now realized it's some sort of reflections due to the puddle and wet pavement.
note to self: always look at the *enlarged* images, before airing the mouth... ;)
It's much more fun the other way around ;-)
Yes it is a dilemma. I've always tended to err om the side of caution, risking potential image degradation in order to protect the front element. I haven't actually attempted to find out if, by how much and under what conditions a filter could have a negative impact on image quality. I once used a Hoya UV filter which actually reduced the exposure by 1/3 stop - despite being clean. I haven't found that my B+W MRC filters have any noticeable impact in this regard.
I used my Lumix 7-14 wide angle extensively in all kinds of conditions and the front element still looks pristine despite never having a filter on it. You just can't mount a filter on the bulbous front element. So unless I was just lucky, this would be an argument against using filters.
Nowadays I'd tend to agree with your (positive) experience of no filters, my only residual concerns being:
- macro work: it's very easy to scratch the front glass against something
- mud/sea spray: when those things dry up, cleaning a lens front glass may be a dangerous game...
that said, I'm mostly taking the risk these days :-)
I've been so involved in macro work that I've "rammed" my lens into the inanimate subject I was photographing. I tend to lose all sense of scale when photographing tiny things. A filter definitely helps there.
Also salty sea spray, mud and even fine sand can be a problem like you say. The only thing is, once I have a filter on for the times I'm shooting in those conditions, I tend to keep it on. I don't like to fiddle with filter changes as well as lens changes out in the field.