In article ,
David Kilpatrick wrote:
The lenses will, I am sure, work without 'protective items' but glass is
glass. A filter or protective glass is really a pretty low cost
insurance against thousands in repair bills. I'm fairly surprised you
would class a UV/glass cover as something undesirable or not really needed.

UV filters do have to potential to degrade the image quality. I recently
scanned some night shots that are particularly bad. Because the filter is
completely parallel to the film/sensor plane, it has the potential to
do all kinds of damage to the image.

I had a cloth, but wiping this stuff off would be
instant destruction for the lens - like sandpapering the front glass. I
had to put up with the thin layer clinging on after blowing off loose
dust, and just avoid any into the light shots. That, or ruin a new Nikon
lens.

I am quite sure that I would use UV filters in those circumstances.
However, it was Nikon's decision to supply lenses with filters, so they will
probably deal with unavoidable damage.

Maybe it was just a test to see how strong their current coatings are.

That's the time when you really want
a £100 filter on the front of your £5000 big glass, not an interesting
mix of sugar, water and road dirt.

My guess is that it not the sugar, water, dirt mixture that does the damage,
but the way you clean it.

Anyhow, a small number of damaged lenses may not be a big deal compared to
flying in lots of journalists.

(If the big lenses have protected filters before the first ED element then
servicing the lens doesn't have to be very expensive either).


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