What filters and where from??

[D4VE 3LL]

Evening,

It's Xmas time soon and I want to treat myself to some filters. I've seen/read/heard about Cokin and the colour casts and know Lee are the dogs bks but are extremely pricey. Have also heard good things about Hi-Tech. Anyone use these or know where to buy them from at the best price? I want the Square type filters with the holder. I already have the B+W ND110 although this is a screw in. Any example shots with a note saying what filter(s) were used would be most welcome to.

Thanks,
Dave

[markmullen]

I got my hitechs off ebay through Formatt who IIRC are the manufacturers.

Essentially the choices are the strength and hard or soft grad. You can get 1,2 or 3 stop filters, helpfully (!) Named 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9. You can also stack multiple filters together.

The hard or soft refers to the gradation from dark to light, hard is better for a defined horizon like the sea, soft better for undulating horizons like a mountain range.

[rhubarb]

I use hitec grads. I'd wanted to go lee but there's an 8-10 week waiting list even for the grads (not just the big stopper). What I went for was a Lee Foundation Kit (I thouight this would be best in case I ever wanted to upgrade later) and then bought a full set of softs and hard (0.3, 0.6 and 0.9). The Lee foundation kit gives you 2 slots as standard but you can add a third.

There are two foundation kits a normal one and a wide angle. I chose the normal one, however there are some issues, firstly at 10mm you can see the third holder so I can now only shoot at 12mm, also if you use a B+W ND110 then you screw it into the adapter ring (rather than the lens) so the depth of the ND110 essentially takes up the first slot, meaning you can only add another two grads - which in most cases should be enough.

The wide angle ring sits backwards slightly of the lens ring so you don't see the adapter at 10mm, however if you're using an ND110 then its a pain as you have to take off the filters and the adapter ring. and then put it all back together again. A bit of a pain, easier witht he normal one as you just unclip the grads and screw on the ND110.

As for performance well there's a strong colour cast for sure (something that the Lee's apparently don't suffer from. Its not too bad and you can post process it oput anyway - but you will have work to do. Most of my stuff is mono anyway so its not a hassle.

This shot is with a screw in ND8 plus an ND 0.6 soft grad:



This shot is an ND110, plus ND0.9 and ND0.3 - left in colour to show what I mean colour wise. All I've done with this is tweaked the levels and reduced noise but the colours are pretty much what came out. Its 12 minute exposure at ISO 400.



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