Re: [Leica] A level of lens protection

[Thomas Kachadurian <kach@freeway.net>]

I must toss in my $.02 re filters.

First, so you know where I come from, I'm a filterless man. My lenses
prefer the freedom. Aside from all of the other reasons not to use them
I'll add two. 1. Clip on or pull out hoods are designed to give maximum
protection from stray light hitting the front element. Stick a filter on
there and you've got a glass surface, high quality or not, only partly
shielded by the hood. 
2. The filter is always bigger than the front element, and a real pain to
keep clean. I'll take a clean lens with a scratch over a dirty filter every
time, but I don't have to because in years of going naked I'm never
suffered even tha slightest mark.

I've purchased lenses from people so affraid to clean them that they
reduced the price for "marks" which turned out to be just nasty
fingerprints that weren't properly cleaned off.

It comes down to this. Why did you buy those lenses? Even Leica gear makes
a lousy investment. They don't do much to impress women (except maybe Tina,
but she's not an ordinary woman). Lenses are a tool for photography, and
sometimes tools will suffer from use. If you use your Leicas for years and
make great photographs, and one day, one of your lenses falls to the gound
on a rock that's just small enough to get at the front element, don't
dispair. It's just the reason you need to buy the newest aspheric version. 

When your tools are too dear to use, it's time to get different tools.

Tom


At 10:55 AM 1/30/98 EST, you wrote:
>With all due respect to Sherry, whom I do respect greatly, a glass-less
filter
>ring will only absorb shock to the extent that it can deform (like the "crush
>zones" designed into automobiles).  Beyond that, the remaining shock will be
>transferred to the lens barrel.  About all a filter ring might do is protect
>the filter threads of the lens from getting dinged by minor bumps and perhaps
>give a tiny bit of extra shielding to very convex, shallow-recessed front
>elements.  A lens hood (particularly a plastic one) would be much more
>effective.  The same goes for a drop to the ground, except that a quick save
>with your foot to break the fall is almost a necessity unless you're on a
soft
>surface.
>
>However, a lens with no filter glass is still vulnerable to whatever sand,
>dust, cinder, grit, etc. that happens to be flying through the air, or acids
>and other pollutants adhering to water molecules.  This is what I refer to
>when I say I use a filter for lens protection.  With top-quality lenses able
>to out-resolve film by a wide margin, I rather play it safe with a $25-50
>Schott-glass filter than risk marring the front element or even its coating.
>This is true with my Nikon lenses...and that much more so with Leica lenses
>whose front elements alone cost more than an entire Nikon lens of similar
>length.
>
>