The U.S. military gets a fair rap as a bureaucracy that wastes money right and left. So I was shocked today to hear that penny-pinching accountants in the Navy are hesitant to let photographers buy UV filters as protection for their camera lenses. The filters cost $40. New lenses cost hundreds of dollars, and one wrong move in tight space on a ship or in the field could lead to cracked glass. Better the glass of the filter than the lense. Someone in the Navy needs to loosen the purse strings when it comes to common-sense purchases like that and instead stop paying $400 for toilet seats and hammers.
