Leica Summarit 35 2.4 ASPH does the image quality suffer when using a Leica UVa filter?

[Anbaric]

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17 minutes ago, matted said:

For specific purposes, yes, they were always a part of serious photography, however the idea of having one on all of the time being a no-no has been around longer than digital; my first film teacher when discussing the matter said "Why would I put a $10 filter in front of a $1500 lens?".

In the Leica world, of course, the question becomes 'Shouldn't I protect my $5000 lens with a $145 filter?" 🙂

I remember these debates in the pre-digital photography, pre-web days, on Usenet. Before that, I'm sure people were arguing about UV filters at camera clubs and in the pub after a hard day's shooting. I suspect it's not an issue that will ever be settled until they start using nanotechnology to make unscratchable lenses out of diamond, or something. Maybe this technology already exists and it's being suppressed by Big Filter...

Edited November 21, 2022 by Anbaric

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[M Street Photographer]

Because of your posts, I'm getting more and more inclined to leave out the filter.
With one exception: if I'm at the sea/beach I would put it up for protection.
But I've always done that and it saved me from a lot of annoyance.

[matted]

20 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

In the Leica world, of course, the question becomes 'Shouldn't I protect my $5000 lens with a $145 filter?" 🙂

 

😂

 

To the OP, I wouldn't lose any sleep over whether or not a clear or UV filter is affecting your image quality, but if you ARE going to leave one on there, it might as well be a quality multi coated one as that will give the least amount of issues with flare, and be sure that it doesn't get in the way of using the cap and hood properly. The latter can be tricky with Leica's screw-on hoods like the ones the 35/50 2.4 Summarits use.

Personally I almost never use clear/UV filters... caps and hoods are for protection, not filters. The exception to this for me is if I will be in a sandy desert environment or by the sea, in which case a cheap filter will help protect the front element from salt and sand. In addition to what has been mentioned above (flare, etc), this is a subtle thing and related to flare, but I don't like the way that filters catch reflections... since they are flat (not concave or convex like lens front elements), and as big as the front of the lens, they act like a little mirror on the front of your lens. Personally I find this catches my attention and is very distracting when I'm on that side of the lens. I have no idea if anyone else on the planet thinks the same way that I do, but anything that I can do to avoid potential attention-getting (when shooting street) or distraction of my subjects (when shooting portraits), the better IMHO. Obviously these filters have been on countless photographer's lenses for countless award-winning amazing images, and blah blah blah, but this is just a personal preference.... 

Edited November 21, 2022 by matted

[pippy]

1 hour ago, matted said:

...my first film teacher when discussing the matter said "Why would I put a $10 filter in front of a $1500 lens?"...

FWIW having just had a look at all the s/h 50mm Leitz LTM lenses on Peter Loy's website no fewer than 10 out of the 20 listed are noted as having scratches / other marks on the front element so I'm going to guess the correct answer to your teacher's question is 'Because it's less expensive to a replace a $10 filter than a $1500 lens?'...

Obviously personal preferences will dictate any one person's actions. If I'm shooting out-and-about then I will always have a filter on.

In well over 40 years of shooting the only tmes I have had cause to question IQ has been fairly recently when using some Leitz B'n'W Contrast filters (Mainly Orange and, to a lesser extent, Yellow) fitted to my '74 35mm Summilux when shooting in monochrome and at the wider end of the aperture range on a Digi-M. My guess - and it IS just a guess - is that the apparent(*) slight softening of the image at the side-frame-edges /corners is caused by heightened Chromatic Aberration and / or Refraction as the light waves pass through the coloured glass in fwhat is a rather extreme lens design. Of course the micro-lenses placed above each pixel of the sensor might also be playing a part.

There does not appear to be the same issue with similar filters on my 'slower' 35s nor - AFAICT - on any other lens of any f/l. I have never once experienced any IQ problems with shooting a problem with clear/UVa filters.

Flare, of course, is a different matter entirely and has already been discussed sufficiently.

Philip.

* EDIT : I've never taken a duplicate non-filtered frame at the same time to be used as a 'control'.

Edited November 21, 2022 by pippy

[jankap]

57 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

In the Leica world, of course, the question becomes 'Shouldn't I protect my $5000 lens with a $145 filter?" 🙂

 

Yes, why not. If the filter, that costs 45$, is a good one. The price ticket is one, the quality of a product is another can of beer.

[Herr Barnack]

For my Q2 and my 28mm and 35mm M lenses, I use UV or clear filters.  These are the lenses I would be using for event and/or street photography.  This protects against inadvertent (or deliberate) contact with the lens front element by people I'm photographing.  I also use the lens hood that each lens comes with.

For my 21/3.4, f/1.0 Noctilux and 90/2 APO, I do not use UV filtters. I use an appropriate B+W screw on metal lens hood for the Noctilux and the 90/2.

I have not done any pixel peeping at the quark level, but so far I have yet to see and noticeable difference in image quality when evaluating my images made with a UV filter attached vs.  images made with no UV filter.

YMMV. 

[Anbaric]

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57 minutes ago, jankap said:

Yes, why not. If the filter, that costs 45$, is a good one. The price ticket is one, the quality of a product is another can of beer.

I'm sure the Leica filters are excellent and it's certainly worth paying for a high quality filter, though I'd be surprised if a $145 Leica UV is better than a $45 B+W UV. I wouldn't be at all suprised if the Leica filter is in fact made by someone like B+W or Hoya. Leica filters rarely feature in comparative tests, except that rather silly one on lensrentals that uses a laser to measure light transmission at just one wavelength, which is pretty meaningless if you look at how much transmission varies across the visible spectrum in the lenstip tests.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Anbaric

[pedaes]

21 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

except that rather silly one on lensrentals 

All that work to be called 'rather silly'!

[pippy]

33 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

...I wouldn't be at all suprised if the Leica filter is in fact made by someone like B+W or Hoya. Leica filters rarely feature in comparative tests, except that rather silly one on lensrentals that uses a laser to measure light transmission at just one wavelength, which is pretty meaningless...

If the Lensentals test to which you allude is this one...

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/06/the-comprehensive-ranking-of-the-major-uv-filters-on-the-market/

...then I'm certainly not going to argue about the use of a laser for their test technique but one thing which caught me eye - with a thought on 'who might manufacture filters for Leica?' - is comparing the specific type(s) of filters by each manufacturer being tested by the site in question. The filter which came out top (with 99.9% transmission) is the only Leica filter tested and it is a UV. The highest scoring B+W filter (99.7%) is a Clear filter; not a UV one. The only B+W UV fiter tested (which also acted as a Haze filter) achieved 97.8%.

I don't think these differences will make any noticeable difference whatsoever in practice but it does hint that perhaps B+W don't make Leica-branded filters or else, if they do, then they are made to different specifications from their own-name offerings.

Incidentally Leica have, in the past, specifically denied that their UV-IR-Cut filters - made for the M8 and marked as having being made in Japan - were made by Hoya which does raise the question; 'If not by Hoya then by Whom?'...

Philip.

[a.noctilux]

If I understand the filters affair is not transparent.

Who makes them for Leica ?

 

Another mandatory accessory I have, "BP-SCL5" battery for M10 is more transparent in "who makes it",

"Made in Indonesia by

PT. VARTA MICROBATTERY INDONESIA"

[Anbaric]

1 hour ago, pedaes said:

All that work to be called 'rather silly'!

Lasers are not always the best solution.

 

[Anbaric]

1 hour ago, pippy said:

...then I'm certainly not going to argue about the use of a laser for their test technique but one thing which caught me eye - with a thought on 'who might manufacture filters for Leica?' - is comparing the specific type(s) of filters by each manufacturer being tested by the site in question. The filter which came out top (with 99.9% transmission) is the only Leica filter tested and it is a UV. The highest scoring B+W filter (99.7%) is a Clear filter; not a UV one. The only B+W UV fiter tested (which also acted as a Haze filter) achieved 97.8%.

Hard to say, really. There might be sample variation or measurement error, especially when we are talking about differences in the fractions of one percent range. Coatings may differ - e.g., the top filters from B+W and Hoya these days have a wipe-clean layer as well as multilayer antireflective coating; not sure what the Leica filters have. But the 635nm wavelength of the laser, somewhere in the red range, is only a tiny slice of the visible spectrum. So I don't think it's valid for the lensrentals guy to compare his results with the manufacturers' figures, which may come from a different type of measurement, presumably using an instrument designed for the purpose, perhaps a scanning spectrophotometer like the lenstip testers used.

Here's the B+W MRC UV from the lenstip test:

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and here's the Hoya SHMC UV:

Both have maximum transmission at around the 635nm wavelength of the laser, somewhere close to 100%, perhaps a little higher in the B+W. But elsewhere they differ, especially in the far blue and red, while the Hoya has a 'notch' below 600nm, but a sharper cutoff at the transition to UV (which the lenstip guys like, but most of us probably don't care about). Which filter is 'better' and how would the Leica look across the whole spectrum? Might be interesting to look for the 'Hoya notch', which all three multicoated Hoya filters have in the lenstip tests (but the Kenko and Marumi filters do not, even though Kenko is part of the same company as Hoya).

Edited November 21, 2022 by Anbaric

[pippy]

3 hours ago, Anbaric said:

..Might be interesting to look for the 'Hoya notch', which all three multicoated Hoya filters have in the lenstip tests (but the Kenko and Marumi filters do not, even though Kenko is part of the same company as Hoya)...

Thanks very much for posting those graphs, Anbaric, as they display a few interesting characteristics.

As far as the 'Hoya Notch' (which concept was, I confess, new to me!) is concerned my understanding is that a snap taken though a Hoya filter would retain a small percentage (circa 2%?) less green 'info' than would the equivalent filter from B+W therefore the resultant image would appear slightly warmer which might help out where, for example, skin-tones are important.

Philip.

Edited November 21, 2022 by pippy

[Anbaric]

9 minutes ago, pippy said:

Thanks very much for posting those graphs, Anbaric, as they display a few interesting characteristics.

As far as the 'Hoya Notch' (which concept was, mI confess, new to me!) is concerned my understanding is that a snap taken though a Hoya filter would retain a small percentage (circa 2%?) less green 'info' than would the equivalent filter from B+W therefore the resultant image would appear slightly warmer which might help out where, for example, skin-tones are important.

Philip.

I didn't know what else to call it. 🙂

But it's only in the HMC, SHMC and Pro-1 (which is effectively a thin SHMC). In their standard filter, which I think has fewer or single coatings on each side, transmission is pretty flat in that range at about the level of the bottom of the notch, so I assume it's a property of the coating rather than the glass.

https://www.lenstip.com/113.14-article-UV_filters_test_Hoya_72_mm_UV-0_-_Standard.html

It's a small effect so I guess it wouldn't be obviously visible in the image.

[Ouroboros]

8 hours ago, matted said:

....my first film teacher when discussing the matter said "Why would I put a $10 filter in front of a $1500 lens?".

If that's the level of his teaching, I doubt he's ever used a camera.

[matted]

15 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

If that's the level of his teaching, I doubt he's ever used a camera.

🙄

[charlesphoto99]

On 11/21/2022 at 6:58 AM, matted said:

 my first film teacher when discussing the matter said "Why would I put a $10 filter in front of a $1500 lens?".

Because, like my 135mm APO that got scratched when I took the filter off it for an hour, that $1500 lens won't be worth half that if one leaves that $10 (well, $100 in the case of Leica) off your lens.