I bought this filter for my Canon 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens. The price was right, and I thought it would be a good way to protect the lens, which this probably does well. And while I am shooting under normal lighting conditions (flash or natural) the filter stays out of the way, but as soon as the lights go down this filter will ruin more photos than I can bear, due to an abundance reflective artifacts. If you take a photo of Christmas lights for example you will see the lights again in a faint green glow on the opposite side of the photo... VERY ANNOYING. Tiffen 52mm UV Protection Filter
This UV filter does it job to protect the lens well. The build is solid (metal construction). The glass is also descent quality.
About the performance, it absorbs some UV light. The UV light absorbtion is hardly noticeable, probably the sky 1-A and the haze filter version will absorb more UV light than this lens which is fine for me.
Now, about the one problem which is the internal reflection. I've heard many people say that it mostly happens during night or low light shooting. I found out that it is not caused directly by the low light/night situation. The internal reflection will appear when there is a strong/bright source of light in comparison to the overall exposure (the surrounding environment). To put it in example (which hopefully is easier to understand), when you take a picture of a lamp during nightime and the light is much brighter than the surrounding area then you will see the internal reflection. as you move the position of the light to be closer to the sides/corner of the picture (and not in the center of the picture), the internal reflection reduces and finally dissapear (if you move the light far enough from the center). And if the light isn't too bright/contrast compare to the surrounding environment then there will be no internal reflection. but of course most of the time, a lamp at nightime is often very bright. But the point that I'm trying to make is that the internal reflection doesn't happen all the time during low light or night time.
Additionally, the internal reflection isn't only happening at night. it can also happen in the afternoon if you are taking a picture of a sun for example. basically same rule as above, on how bright is the light source compared to the surrounding area, and as you move the sun from the center of the photo and near the side the internal reflection will move to the side/dissapear (also depending the angle). But the best way is just to remove the filter during these situations.
Hope this explanation helps you to reduce the occurence of internal reflection by identifying correctly when the internal reflection will occur and then remove the filter during those situation (which is not hard to do).
I'm actually not a fan of lens filter (any filter) as I think it will only degrade picture quality as we added another layer between the sensor and object, but I decided to use them anyway for all my lens. And I would recommend everyone to get one of this filter if you don't have any filter for your lens yet.
I use this filter on my 50mm f/1.8D lens and on my 18-55mm lens.
I got this filter before I understood the difference between cheap filters and ones that actually work well. I was getting such great results with my new 50mm f/1.8 lens during the day, but at night i was getting a lot of ghosting and flaring in my pictures. It took me a while to realize it was because of the filter. After doing some online research, I decided to remove the filter, and my pictures were all suddenly better with that lens. The glass was affecting my picture quality!
The glass used is cheap, and not very good quality, so it can actually degrade your pictures. It works well to protect the glass on the lens from scratches or dust, but it's a much better idea to pay $20 more and get a good filter that will actually help you get better pictures. If you don't want to pay the extra for a decent filter, you might be better off just leaving the filter off. I reccomend Hoya Pro1 and B&W filters; and in the 52mm size, the price is very reasonable. Once you start buying nicer lenses that require 77mm filters, that's where the good filters really start adding up. But again, you aren't going to want to put a cheap filter on a $1000 lens.
I know this review might sound negative, but if it helps someone capture a memory better because they decided to get a little nicer filter, it will be worth it.
Amazon lumps together ALL the Tiffen filter reviews. So unless you specify which specific filter you are reviewing, no one will know! This makes all those reviews that say something like, "this filter made my pictures too dark/light/red/green/whatever" totally useless.
Amazon tends to lump together similar products (like all or many cameras from one manufacturer), so in general it is a good idea to specify the product you are reviewing in your Amazon reviews.'
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