UV Filters - reducing sharpness?

[arith]

Can't see the youtube link from work but my cameras have been soaked loads of times. Mostly by rain as it rains a lot in Scotland but they have also been soaked by salt water while hanging over the side of a boat to photograph dolphins and sitting at the bottom of waterpark flumes.

It's an EOS 3 with 100mm macro below but I used a 300D for over a year in all sorts of weather and it was fine. So long as I can keep the viewfinder and front element clear to shoot through rain or spray doesn't bother me - there's only so much water that will stick on a camera before it runs off....


I rarely use camera bags - most of the time I go out with the camera round my neck with the lens I plan on using. If it rains the camera gets wet.

Folk often bang on about weather sealing like it's really important. I used to think that too until I proved to myself that even my 300D could cope fine with rain.

Anybody ever had a DSLR or lens stop working because it got wet?

That is really useful to me; after reading the instruction manual I am terrified of water. The slightest spit of rain and job over.

Maybe it is not that bad after all and I can go out and take some photo's in our wonderful weather.

[Colin Southern]

That is really useful to me; after reading the instruction manual I am terrified of water. The slightest spit of rain and job over.

Maybe it is not that bad after all and I can go out and take some photo's in our wonderful weather.

My suggestion would be to just utilise common sense; just because your car may have front and rear crumple zones - front and side airbags - and pre-tensioning seatbelts doesn't mean that it's a good idea to drive like a reckless maniac! Same with cameras. Some have better weather sealing than others, and just because one person hasn't had an issue doesn't mean that someone else won't in the same circumstance

[Blazing fire]

Agreed with Colin. Try not to expose your camera to water and try to keep your camera in a cool (~23C), dry environment (~RH 50%) when not in use. For instance, in a dry cabinet. Try not to bump and drop the camera either. This may cause misalignment of the sensor. In other words, baby your camera and it will serve you well.

Bythom:

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[KentDub]

I store my gear in an air tight pelican case and use silica gel drying crystals to dry out my gear completely after a day of shooting in rain. Toweling off the exterior of course. Here's a link to the reusable SGC packs if anyone is interested: http://www.pelican-case.com/15peldessilg.html

Do those gel packs ever go bad? They look like it might be a good idea to buy one and toss it into the camera bag. I'm in a moderate-to-high humity environment, but am not too concerned with it. It just seems like an extremely easy thing to do that adds one additional layer of protection to the gear.

[Amberglass]

Do those gel packs ever go bad? They look like it might be a good idea to buy one and toss it into the camera bag. I'm in a moderate-to-high humity environment, but am not too concerned with it. It just seems like an extremely easy thing to do that adds one additional layer of protection to the gear.

Oh extremely easy, and not a bad one time investment.

They don't go "bad" but needs to be "reactivated" once they "absorbed" their fill of moisture. Pelican's Hydrosorbent silica pack has a tiny window that shows "blue" when activated, and "pink" when inactive. I like Pelican's because you can "reactivate" them indefinitely.

All you have to do is put them in a convection (vented) oven at 300 degree fahrenheit for about 3 hours, or until the window turns blue again. I just use a small toaster oven.

For me it's cheaper to store my gear in my small basement office closet and use a room dehumidifier. A separate barometer within the gear closet itself to double check that the humidity stays around 42-45%.

One silica pack will protect a 3 cubic feet of enclosed space. I like to keep one in my gear roller case when I travel, or whenever humidity is going to be an issue.

[Andy]

My suggestion would be to just utilise common sense; just because your car may have front and rear crumple zones - front and side airbags - and pre-tensioning seatbelts doesn't mean that it's a good idea to drive like a reckless maniac! Same with cameras. Some have better weather sealing than others, and just because one person hasn't had an issue doesn't mean that someone else won't in the same circumstance

FWIW I've heard of a few cases of cameras getting soaked in bags where water has made a puddle and the camera has been sitting in it - most of the time the owner dries the camera out and it works again but occasionally it kills the camera for good. Something well worth being aware of IMO - make sure water can't collect in your bag if you are out in the rain.

I've only heard of one case (on the net and yonks ago) where the camera was in use and stopped working - IIRC a pro with an EOS 3 and a 1V photographing a hurricane in torrential rain or something. Once dried out the EOS 3 was fine but the 1V never missed a beat throughout. I'm not suggesting there isn't a case for weather sealing, just my research and experiences suggest it's not essential for the conditions I find myself in. Thankfully we don't get hurricanes or tropical storm in Scotland but it does rain an awful lot.

[rpcrowe]

I will use a UV filter as protection when I am in a venue which might be harmful to the lens: blowing dust or sand, precipitation or any other danger. I will only use the best (B&W or Hoya Multi Coated) filters available. Any filter will cause a slight bit of image degradation but, cheap ones cause a noticeable loss of image quality.

Here is a link to discussions on filters for protection.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...d.php?t=368177

[Colin Southern]

Any filter will cause a slight bit of image degradation but, cheap ones cause a noticeable loss of image quality.

Although one might argue that because any change in image quality when using a high-quality filter is undetectable to the human eye, it's possible that using the filter might actually IMPROVE image quality (but we had no way of knowing) (perhaps by reducing a tiny amount of unsharpness in the blue channel).