Lee filters

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Dougie
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While I have the funds available I'm considering buying a set of Grad ND filters. I thought I'd go for Hitech as a compromise between quality and cost. Recently though I've heard of colour casts when stacking them and this has got me worried and now thinking of going the whole hog for Lees. They are expensive though. I'm thinking of buying the 100x150 set and using them hand held and so removing the cost of a holder. I've seen a few photographers doing this now and there's no apparent hassle. What I'm not really sure of is
1) What should I be looking at, Soft or Hard. I guess I could feather the hard for when I would prefer soft?
2)Who does the best price for these out there, Amazon??
3) Would I be better buying a mix of soft and hard. ie. Is there filters you tend not to use in a set?
4) In fact if there's any information you think may be helpful please comment. If I'm honest I don't know much about filters.:shrug:

Thanks
 
Hi

Got the Lee Foundation Holder and Wide Angle Adaptor around 1 week ago. I opted for a 4stop GND SoftEdge Hitech.

How did I come to those decisions?

Well reading on here was of course the first step. I was generally directed towards the Lee Holder over the Cokin and Hitech and also the Hitech Filter over the Lee and Cokin.

On the day I made the purchase of the filter...I took a random metering out in the garden off the grass and then of a sunny bright sky dappled with cloud. It was around midday and measured between 3-5 stops.

Using this as a guide I decided to go for the 4stop filter first. I can always add if needed and the other side of the coin is I don't need to stack any of the 1-2-3 stoppers.

The filter arrived before the holder and found hand holding it a bit of an issue. It increased fingerprints all over it, I couldn't softly hold the filter against the lens so I guess I would have been introducing camera shake (tripod mounted) and the positioning was less accurate - there is a firm pressure on the filter once in the holder yet easy to move and easier still to rotate. There was also a fear of dropping the filter hence the fingerprints and this was in a test situation in the comfort of the back garden. In the field this could be a big issue (for me) fearing scratching the filter or shaking the camera from holding the filter onto the lens as said in the test setup.

I also have a Lee Big Stopper on order so the whole setup was basically determind around this and a Grad or two or three ;)

I will be doing more landscapes in the beginning so believe a Soft Edge is more use here whereas Seascapes would be most suited to Hard Edge. This of course is simply down to guesswork...I have yet to get out and try (buy) both filters in both scenarios.


Andy
 
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Andy, Chris, I appreciate the info, it's helping me build a better picture of what I might go for.:thumbs:
 
1) mostly soft, but hard works better with straight horizon and open seascapes. Hard may be better for telephoto work.

3) Probably. I use 0.9 soft 90% time, 5% 0.6 hard (I don't have 0.9), 3% both and 2% 0.9 soft and 0.6 soft. 0.6 on its on is too weak. 1.2 would be nice.

4) It depends on your specific needs, and how your lens handles stacked filters should you do so.
 
I have recently aquired Lee filters after using Hitech for some time. Firstly, in terms of value for money, the Hitech are excellent. The Lee filters appear better, but it is a big increase in price for what I would consider a slight improvement.
I mainly shoot landscapes and find that a soft grad 0.6 has been my most used.
 
Soft Lee's are brilliant. Turn 'em upside down for a hard grad. Doesn't always work but it gives you another free option.
 
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