Front protective filter on the long Nikon primes.

[Spudnik510]

Hi,
Ive been looking into the long Nikon primes such as the 500mm f4 and the 600mm f4, I was just wondering about the front protective glass element. I was told there is a flat piece of glass on the front that is designed to be a protective filter. Can this filter be removed or replaced if damaged or scratched. And also do these lenses have front filter threads so the UV filter can be placed on them to protect the front element.
Thanks

 

[wookie6262]

Some can be removed for cleaning, some can't and some don't have them from my knowledge. Most of the long lenses use drop in filters at the other end of the lens and the hood is usually the main protection

 

[rob-nikon]

The only long lens I’ve had that had a removable front element was the Nikon 200-400 f4. They say it’s a protective element but it’s pretty big and deep so very expensive to replace if scratched. It was as far removed from a UV filter as possible.

Link to show Nikon 200-400 f4 removable front element

whilst long lenses have big front element they are hard to damage if you take care and use the hood. I only ever had one incident were a dog ran into the hood of my 300 f2.8 when I was laying on the floor photographing squirrels. had a bit of dirt splashed onto the front element which I blew off with a rocker blower and very gently wipes with lens wipes. No damage done.

I personally wouldn't put a UV filter on any lens as protection as they aren’t that strong. I do have a hoya HD protector filter to put on 77mm front element lenses when there is a need ie flying sand or other similar particles but I don’t generally have them on all the time. The HD protector are hardened glass so stronger than UV filters. There has been incidents where the smashed UV filter caused more damage to the front element than would have occurred without one. Filters are 1-2mm thick whereas front element are usually much thicker hardened glass.

 

[sk66]

Short answer is no... not removable, not user serviceable, no filter threads (only the 200-400 is different AFAIK).

The protective glass is more advanced than flat filters... they are meniscus elements (curved to overcome internal reflection). Placing a flat filter in front of such high magnification lenses is likely to cause more issues than it prevents.

 

[Bristolian]

My own experience of using screw-in filters with long lenses is that they mess with image quality. I've used them on three Sigma super zooms and one Nikon zoom with the same result.

Making sure you have the lens hood attached gives much better protection than any filter, IMO.