Filters are probably the most important pieces of kit you will own aside from your camera and tripod. I’ve had 3 different sets of filters now so thought I’d give a little feedback on them, based on my personal experience, for anyone thinking of buying some.
The first set I had was the Cokin p filter set, ND2 (P121L), ND4 (P121M) & ND8 (P121S) soft grads with an 85mm holder. I suffer with mild colour blindness so I REALLY struggled with the Cokins, even the Z-pro 100mm ones which i borrowed from someone, often posting pictures without realising the sky was purple/magenta which was very frustrating once pointed out.
I decided enough was enough, I was sick of not knowing whether a sky in my photo was purple or not, so I bought a LEE 0.9SE Grad. I hummed and harred for ages about which one to get, I do a lot of seascape stuff so thought about the 0.6HE but in the end I figured the 0.9SE would be a bit more versatile, with the 150mm height and the graduation being quite …. erm …. gradual, you have a lot of leeway for making the sky as bright or dark as you need if you’re using it for broken horizons (you even have the option of pulling it all the way down to make a solid 0.9ND filter). I found that the 0.9SE was great with no colour cast at all, but I was lacking something for clean straight horizons so the hunt for a hard edged grad began.
I couldn’t afford another LEE so a cheaper alternative was needed, I had a cheap Kood 2 stop 85mm square ND filter that worked quite well so had a look to see if they made 100mm grads, which they do, fantastic eh!
I ordered a 100mm ND4 hard graduated filter, it was about £20 so I figured if it was rubbish then its not the end of the world right? Low expectations and all……
When it arrived, I headed out for sunset on Hadrians wall. Hoping for the best but remaining conscious of the fact this was a £20 filter, I was surprised to find that it has no colour cast at all. Its as neutral as the LEE and even when stacked the colours still remain natural. I’ve since bought a Kood ND4 soft grad and a Kood ND8 soft grad and they have been spot on as well.
As for the filter holder itself, I was using a Cokin Z-pro 100mm holder with a 77mm adapter ring. I used this on my old camera with a tokina 11-16 and my new one with the 17-40L and it did have a noticeable vignette when used at the wide end of both. If the filter holder was turned at all even say 20 degrees you could begin to see it in the viewfinder as well. I changed this for the LEE foundation holder with a 77mm wide angle adapter ring which brings the filters around 7-8mm closer to the lens front element. This has made a marked improvement with little to no vignetting even when used at 17mm. Yes you can remove the Vignette in Lightroom or other editing software but that’s obviously a compromise and introduces noise into your recovered shadows etc. Half the battle is getting it as close as you can in camera so there’s minimal PP needed.
All in all, I’d say if you are looking for some decent filters, the Kood 100mm ones are a worth looking into. The Cokin z-pro filter holder and adapter ring are ok if you aren’t using a really wide lens but they work out at around £50.00 anyway so if you can I’d spend the extra £30/£35 or so and get the LEE holder with a wide angle ring, it really does make a big difference.
You can pick up a ND4 hard grad, a ND8 soft grad and if you go for the Cokin holder or similar you can have a decent setup for less than £100 which I personally think is great value. It may not sound cheap but realistically when they are as important as the equipment they’re attached to its invaluable. You can buy replica LEE holders from eBay etc but I’m not sure what they are like so can’t comment on the quality.
Sorry if you’ve spent ages reading this and not found it interesting or helpful but for those who don’t have any filters and are trying to figure out what to buy, I know its a minefield and there’s so many to choose from so hopefully this post may help.
