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- Name
- Alan
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Well this is not what I thought I'd be posting. I needed to go back to 100mm filters for my Fuji 10-24mm, ad planned to make it a once only purchase - how wrong that was! So instead of the lee Seven5 system I now had Firecrest filters and the Aluminium holder - and I don't like any of it! The holder can't be turned to align the filters unless you loosen the screw that holds it onto the lens, that is a guaranteed way for very expensive and heavy filters to end up crashing to the floor, OK so I have a lathe, I could modify the system by grooving the adapters and turning the lock screw down to match the groove, but that's for another day. The main thing that bothers me is the grads themselves - they are far too refelctive and the grad is far too soft.
Photo of a white wall with the 1.2 grad. I can see the lens clearly reflected in the filter, and the gradation takes up the entire image - from a 10mm ultrawide! Never seen that from any other filter.
Things don't improve much in the field...
Same grad and Firecrest 13 stop ND too. Reflecting the pathetic amount of sun that's peeking through a cloud behind me.
Add to that, the first time I used the 0.6ND it scratched in the filter holder! The only positive is that the filters are dead neutral.
Weighing up whether to buy the very expensive Firecrest holder system with it's light blocking cover (obviously hitech are well aware of the poor performance of the firecrest filters in this regard), which to be honest looks like a lot of faffing about when on location, try lee or progrey grads in the aluminium holder or some other mix and match. The firecrest grads are all going back, though the solid ND I think I'll keep hold of for now as it's infinitely better than the Lee version.
Thoughts on alternatives?
Photo of a white wall with the 1.2 grad. I can see the lens clearly reflected in the filter, and the gradation takes up the entire image - from a 10mm ultrawide! Never seen that from any other filter.
Things don't improve much in the field...
Same grad and Firecrest 13 stop ND too. Reflecting the pathetic amount of sun that's peeking through a cloud behind me.
Add to that, the first time I used the 0.6ND it scratched in the filter holder! The only positive is that the filters are dead neutral.
Weighing up whether to buy the very expensive Firecrest holder system with it's light blocking cover (obviously hitech are well aware of the poor performance of the firecrest filters in this regard), which to be honest looks like a lot of faffing about when on location, try lee or progrey grads in the aluminium holder or some other mix and match. The firecrest grads are all going back, though the solid ND I think I'll keep hold of for now as it's infinitely better than the Lee version.
Thoughts on alternatives?