Lee or Hitech Filters - some questions please.

Sootchucker

Sootchucker

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Andrew
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Right, I've decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my ageing (and scratched) Cokin filter system to the 100mm Lee system, but do have a couple of questions.

Do they do a kit including the holder, 77mm adapter ring and a set of grads or do they have to all be purchased separately ?

Advice over Soft or Hard grads ? As my photography is quite varied, I can't guarantee perfect sea like horizons, so I'm leaning towards the soft grads ?

I assume a 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 are the best and most used grads to go for ?

I also notice that Hitech produce a number of filters that fit the Lee system, and don't come with the 8-10 weeks delivery time that Lee seem to want and are cheaper. Are they as good or a pale imitation ?

Best (cheapest) place to purchase from ?

Many thanks in advance.
 
You can buy a starter kit of three grads (0.3, 0.6, and 0.9) the holder and an adapter ring of your choice for around £180. At least that is what I paid at the Focus on Imaging show this year.

Soft grads are generaslly more versatile than hards and that is what I use the most for landscapes.
 
You can buy a kit like this but no adaptor:

http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/lee-starter-kit.html

You'd likely be better off buying bits separately though unless you really want those particular filters.

The hitech filters are good. When I bought my Lee system, I was on a tight budget and went for hitech kit. They work really well on their own but I had bother when I wanted to stack them and have over time replaced them with Lee kit.

Robert White, Teamwork digital and Formatt (for hitech) are all good places to buy.
 
I'm venturing into the filter market at the moment and I'm scouring flee bay for the holder (just bought for £45) and rings as its unlikely that anything will be wrong with these. The filters themselves I will buy new and will probably go Hitech soft grads.
 
If budget is limited I'd go for hard grads, I find I used them a lot more than soft as with soft edged grads the full effect is only at the top of the filter which means if you've got a bright cloudy sky the lower sections nearer the horizon can blow. With a hard edge you can always selectively lighten the odd bits that become filtered un-necessarily.
 
Thanks for the responses guys. Another quick question, with regard to sizes, I notice that Lee so a few different. I assume that the 100mm filters are the most popular. The widest lens I would be using them on will by my Nikon 16-35mm F4 VR on a D800 (full frame). Would the 100mm system suffice ?
 
100mm should easily cover 16-35 lens diameter. I can't see why not.

I suggest skipping 0.3 hard and 0.3-0.6 soft because the effect is too delicate to be noticed easily, and here lr does a better job by allowing more control. Stronger filters make more sense as this can not be easily replicated in post most of the times
 
daugirdas said:
100mm should easily cover 16-35 lens diameter. I can't see why not.

I suggest skipping 0.3 hard and 0.3-0.6 soft because the effect is too delicate to be noticed easily, and here lr does a better job by allowing more control. Stronger filters make more sense as this can not be easily replicated in post most of the times
Click to expand...

Thanks, so you would suggest going for 0.6 and 0.9 hard and only the 0.9 soft ?
 
The 100mm filters are fine for the 16-35, but buy the wide angle adapter ring, not the standard, other wise you get vignetting up to 18mm

I had both full sets of hard and soft grads. I ended up selling all the soft as I rarely used them, now I I really only use the 0.9 hard and very rarely the 0.6. The 0.3s are pretty pointless really, Lightroom can do just a good a job as they can.
 
Sootchucker said:
Thanks, so you would suggest going for 0.6 and 0.9 hard and only the 0.9 soft ?
Click to expand...

that's what I have in the bag at the moment. You may also want 1.2 plain ND, but perhaps get it as screw in.
 
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