Protecting Your Lens
Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:00AM | Tom S. ;)
Actually this is about protecting the "front element" of your lens. There are many thoughts about this subject, a few of us have damaged a lens or two over the years so this can be a big issue.
I was listen to a podcast a few days about by Scott Bourne along with his co-host Joe Farace who had different takes on how this should be done. Joe was a big proponent of using a clear filter, Scott was not.
Scot had the front element of his $14,000 Sigma 800mm lens damaged by someone who backed into him with a tripod leg, a rather freak accident. Now you'd think that a lens of that price would have been very costly to repair, but he claimed that it was only around $160 to replace the front element. This might turn out to be best damage to do to a lens. Now he stressed that he wasn't sure that every lens would be that cheap to repair, but it is a good example.
Scott is a strong proponent of protecting your lens but suggests that you do so by using the lens hood that came with the lens. He couldn't figure out why anyone would buy an expensive lens and put a cheap, usually poor piece of glass, in front of it.
Now on the other hand if you knew you were going into an environment where there was a high probability of having the front element hit then Joe would be correct. He would suggest using a good quality lens filter of some sort for additional protection. They both suggested those made by "B+W" or possibily Hoya.
This past summer Ken Lamb had his camera pelted with rocks while shooting the "Fat Tire Festival", so I suspect Ken would suggest you use a filter.
But regardless of how you do it, protect them even a kit lens is a good lens!