We have a beach shoot coming up, and have been perusing the board for protective gear threads. Lots of good info; quick question on inexpensive filters, which for this application will probably be ok; B&H has some Tiffen filters for around $15, are these noticably better than the $10 sunpaks from Best Buy?

BB also sells a sony kit for $33 that has a multicoat filter and an ND filter.

I was burned bad by an inexpensive filter on a pd170. The focus looked soft most of the time. I don't know if it was me, the filter, or a combination of both, but I never had this problem before or after I took the filter off.

For now I use no filter and I just shot a wedding on a beach. It looked great.
For the most part I won't use filters anymore for weddings. I'm just careful with the camera, especially when shooting the limo arrival and departure near the roadside.

Personally, I'm willing to take the chance with lens damage. Some shooters have other approaches.

My advice is buy an expensive filter or use none at all.

I shoot weddings with a .7x WA adapter in place most of the time so a filter is not needed. I would use a multi-coated UV filter if I felt the need. I think Hoya makes affordable multi-coated glass filters. Take a look at B&H.

I seriously doubt that that inexpensive a filter will deliver a good performance in an environment that will do its best to cause ghost reflections and generally disclose optical inadequacies in your gear.

That said, a $10 filter will probably protect the front lens element.

But if you are going to the trouble and expense to use the beach as a locatation, why not use an adequate filter? A good Hoya, a B+W or something you know will work this time and all the time.

I've only lost one B+W filter when a bit of gravel was kicked up by a flash-bang grenade while I was covering SWAT training. Given the years of good performance by the filter before that happened, I had no hesitation in ordering another one from B&H the next day.

Good advice! Thanks.