Holder for Hitech 100mm Filter

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Just bought myself a used HiTech 10stop 100mm filter from a fellow TP member and now making sure I get the right kit to fit it to the camera.

Do I need the original HiTech 100mm Modular Holder that is 50 quid, or are there cheaper, reliable alternatives?

I've heard about Cokin ZPro and some of the other options being poor build quality or letting light in where they shouldn't.

Is that the case or is there a better alternative to the holder and adapter rings on Formatt Hitech's website?

The holder being the same price as I paid for a lightly used 10 stop filter is slightly crazy ;)
 
Just bought myself a used HiTech 10stop 100mm filter from a fellow TP member and now making sure I get the right kit to fit it to the camera.

Do I need the original HiTech 100mm Modular Holder that is 50 quid, or are there cheaper, reliable alternatives?

I've heard about Cokin ZPro and some of the other options being poor build quality or letting light in where they shouldn't.

Is that the case or is there a better alternative to the holder and adapter rings on Formatt Hitech's website?

The holder being the same price as I paid for a lightly used 10 stop filter is slightly crazy ;)

There are two versions of the 10-stop, that differ on the gasket thickness, you want the hitech holder for a 'hitech gasket' 10 stop, and the lee holder for the 'lee gasket' 10 stop.

If the filter doesn't state which it is, you should be able to work it out by measuring the thickness of the gasket, the hitech sized one should be 4mm thick, the lee one 2mm thick (confusingly this is inverse to the difference in the filter slot thickness).

Anyway, most people work on the principle that the lee holder is a better option for 100mm than either the hitech or the cokin (with the cokin being the worst of the 3). One definite advantage of the Lee holder is that its thicker filter slots (2mm for lee vs 1.5mm for hitech) allow use of the Lee polyester filter snap-holders, which allow you to use lighting gels as (cheap) colour filters - not a bad option if you need to use a colour filter that isn't something you're going to use a lot. Another advantage is that the lee system is more modular, allowing you to daisychain holders to give extra slots and separately rotatable slots.

Price wise there isn't much in it though.

Edit to add:

Apparently hitech sold non-gasket'ed 10-stops for a while, given that it's used it could also be one of those, in which case I believe it will fit in any of the 100mm holders (although may suffer light bleed without wrapping some kind of shroud around the holder, which is why the gasket was added)
 
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There are two thicknesses for the new HiTec 10 stop ND filter. The 3mm is only for use with the HiTec holder, the 1.5mm will fit both the Lee and the Cokin ZPro holders.

The gaskets were added because of light bleeding with all of the holders. Remember that your cameras viewfinder will bleed light, the optical viewfinders that is, and will need masking off too.

The Lee holder will set you back around £80, the Cokin ZPro costs around £55, I'm not sure about the HiTec.

There are no quality issues with the Cokin ZPro series holder, people who say there are have, in general, never used this series and jump on the Cokin P series colour cast issues bandwagon which is in relation to the filter and not the holder!!

Andy
 
The Lee holder will set you back around £80, the Cokin ZPro costs around £55, I'm not sure about the HiTec.

You're seriously overpaying at that price, Teamwork have the Foundation kit at £48. Sure you'll need to add another £15 for the adapter ring, but then the cokin and hitech prices won't include an adapter either.

Hitech should be about £50 too. As I said, they're all pretty much the same price - which makes me wonder how Cokin manage to sell any of theirs since it's considered lower quality (although the Zpro is about the best quality cokin make for their holders, the P and A are even worse)
 
NikkiA said:
You're seriously overpaying at that price, Teamwork have the Foundation kit at £48. Sure you'll need to add another £15 for the adapter ring, but then the cokin and hitech prices won't include an adapter either.

Hitech should be about £50 too. As I said, they're all pretty much the same price - which makes me wonder how Cokin manage to sell any of theirs since it's considered lower quality (although the Zpro is about the best quality cokin make for their holders, the P and A are even worse)

I don't know where you get your information from because Teamwork don't stock Cokin kit.

Have you used the Cokin ZPro kit, I would love to know where you get your info about quality issues with the holders!!

Yes, the Lee filters are excellent quality but this comes at a cost. The glass filters are easily broken as well.

Who considers Cokin as a lesser quality than HiTec?

Andy
 
I don't know where you get your information from because Teamwork don't stock Cokin kit.

Have you used the Cokin ZPro kit, I would love to know where you get your info about quality issues with the holders!!

Yes, the Lee filters are excellent quality but this comes at a cost. The glass filters are easily broken as well.

Who considers Cokin as a lesser quality than HiTec?

Andy

The £48 I quoted was for the lee holder, that you state is £80. I never mentioned anything about teamwork selling cokin's holder

And yes, I've used Cokins Z, P and A kits, they're all much cheaper build quality than hitech or lee, IME.
 
The HiTech kit direct from them is £50 for the holder plus £13 for the adapter ring so about standard then!

I may as well get it ordered from them as they deliver here to Korea pretty quickly too!
 
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