Thoughts on stacking filters

[Canonbassist909]

What are your thoughts on sticking lens filters… 58 mm for Lens size , filters are UV and CPL 

What are the advantages? 

cheers all ! 

[Tronhard]

You will doubtless get a variety of opinions for the use of filters, and while I use high quality filters to protect the front elements of my lenses, I don't see the point of stacking filters. The more glass you add, the more chance of diffraction and reflection.  While I accept that is a case for a protect filter, I consider that an acceptable price to pay for the protection they offer, but if I want a CPL filter, I remove the UV or protect filter and replace it with the CPL.  On wide-angle lenses there is a greater risk of introducing mechanical vignetting.

[Canonbassist909]

hey Trevor .. thanks much for the reply .. im personally not using wide angle at all.. very straight forward 75-300 canon lens .. I do have a CPL on there now.. im upgrading the filter from a no name brand to a HOYA alpha  2 series .. and with what ive been reading . that brand is pretty good .. 

[Tronhard]

I still would not stack filters, if you have a CPL on it, what is the purpose of the UV lens? 

I will hold my tongue on the 75-300...

[Canonbassist909]

Very true ..l I’ll leave my cpl on there ..l honestly have heard mixed emotions on the 75-300.. which is understandable 

but I have been lucky with it.. I’ve achieved some genuinely good shots with that thing.. but I feel I’ve grown out of it I need something bigger now 

which is why I’m getting a siggy 150-600 😎😎

[Tronhard]

That's a good lens.  Filters for that are NOT on the cheap side though, so if you don't really need a CPL filter for it, you can put that towards an EF 70-300 IS USM MkII, which is awesome and cheap.

[Waddizzle]

I didn’t know that filters could have threads so that you could stack them. Even if you could stack them, then you could have problems with vignetting. 

[stevet1]

I would say that a CPL filter serves a purpose. It can cut through glare and reflections and make your blue skies bluer, but it will also cut your available light by around 1.5 stops. You'll have to lower your shutter speed, or widen your aperture, or increase your ISO to compensate.

I'd say that the CPL serves a purpose, so only use it when you want that purpose served.

I have a clear protective filter on all my lenses (I can't remember if they are UV or not). I'll stack a CPl on top of it, but that's just because I forget the clear filter is there to begin with. I've never noticed any serious vignetting as a result, but maybe that's because I'm not that accomplished as a photographer anyway.

I did try to stack a 10 stop ND filter on top of a 3 stop ND filter the other day to get a 13 stop filter, but the results were way off. I haven't figured out yet what I was doing wrong.

I do know that I was trying a night time shot a while back that had an external light source off to the side and got a horrible light flare. I've learned in the meantime to take my clear/UV filter off with that kind of shot.

Steve Thomas

[Tronhard]

I use a CPL filter particularly for cutting through water or glass reflection.   These days, a lot of the functions to make colours more dense or dehaze can be done in post.  

[justadude · Accepted solution]

Most of the time stacking filters is not recommended.  There are times to break the rules (of course) but generally it is not a good idea for the reasons Trevor already mentioned.  

Examples of exceptions to the rule... There are times I am using an infrared filter, and I want a longer exposure than the light allows, so I add a ND filter.  The same works with a CPL and an ND filter.  However, to avoid vignetting, I use square filters instead of screw in types, which helps to an extent - depending on how wide you are shooting.  Stacking this way works well on both digital and film photography.

However for UV filters, which honestly do little more than protect the lens, there is no real reason to double stack.