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Hi all,

Just picked my first DSLR... D70 with 18-70 kit lens and a Hoya UV filter from the friendly folks at Vanbar . Very impressive piece of gear (I had a G5 previously).

The first of many questions to all you knowledgable D70Users i'm sure is...

I was just wondering if I should leave the filter on the lens all the time or should I take it off for nights shots and indoor shots?

Also.. is it worthwhile to get a polarizing filter as well?

Cheers.

Hello hardboiled, congrates on your purchase and welcome to the family.

I don't think there's much harm in leaving your UV filter on for nightshoots and indoors. If you picked it up as a kit, there's no doubt they would have given you the cheapest, possibly uncoated version of the filter, so there's a slightly greater chance of flaring, eg. when you shoot a nightscape with street lamps in the frame. But night shots are hardly optimal for image quality anyways.

The absolute purists will tell you there's potential for degradation of image quality with the two extra air to glass surfaces you just created by having a filter at the front of the lens - but on a zoom like the 18-70DX with in excess of a dozen elements, one more probably won't make that much difference.

For protection of the lens' front element and improvement of image quality, you should stick the hood on at all times except when using the built-in flash.

Welcome aboard hardboiled, great to have another Melbourne member.

My view on the UV filter is that the benefits of protection of the front element of the lens outweigh any minimal downside of one extra piece of glass. I have seen the counter view expressed here, and it sounded pretty good too. But the lens protection wins it for me.

As to the polarising filter, I am getting one next week and looking forward to having it. So I hope it is worthwhile

G'day,
I'm only a newbie too and I tend to leave a good quality UV filter on to protect the lens more than anything, but a polariser helps a lot with color saturation and reduces reflections, skies can be much more colorful and "contrasty"... Helps heaps when photographing scenes involving water too by reducing reflections... Depends on what you want to achieve I suppose but I use the CP heaps...

And welcome to the forum...

Cheers,
Mudder

Thanx for your replies.. much appreciated