Relative to most lighting equipment, filters are far less expensive, easier to obtain, and in many cases are capable of producing significantly better results. Unfortunately, knowing which filter to select, which options are readily available, and where to get them can all be a problem. Despite this, a variety of off-the-shelf filters are available from a number of vendors and this low-cost investment can result in very large returns. In many cases, when faced with developing a machine vision system that involves a lighting problem, it makes sense to examine the benefits of optical filters first before ordering lighting hardware.

Midwest Optical Systems offers a complete line of mounted filters specifically created for industrial machine vision applications. While many other companies offer unmounted or mounted filters developed for photography or other uses, these filters are often not readily adaptable to industrial vision equipment nor do they result in the best solutions for many machine vision problems.