Which big stopper????

photographyman

photographyman

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Alan
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Hello all,
I am seriously thinking of getting a big stopper filter, at the moment I am using hitech filters, but which of the big stoppers would you recommend???

LEE or HITECH?

Cheers..
 
Depends how fast you need it.
Lee Big Stoppers are like proverbial Hen's Teeth.
You'll find lots of threads on here asking where to get one - short answer is by luck.

If you aren't prepared to wait, then the Hitech will do a cracking job :)
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
Depends how fast you need it.
Lee Big Stoppers are like proverbial Hen's Teeth.
You'll find lots of threads on here asking where to get one - short answer is by luck.

If you aren't prepared to wait, then the Hitech will do a cracking job :)
Click to expand...

This. My Pro Stopper works well enough for me. With a little tweak in PS I can sort out the white balance.

Cheers.
 
Thanks Guys,

Although the LEE filter is better but like you have mentioned they are difficult to get hold of.
Is it worth the wait or not? "Thinking"
 
I had the Hitech 85mm and owing to the foam gasket I needed to shoot around 20mm at least to avoid really bad vignetting but the results when i did were ok

I've just ordered a Lee Big Stopper and fitting kit but its not due into the supplier for several weeks (if not months). Could of done with it the other day when the sun was blazing down!
 
Thanks guys.
After 3 days off trying to find a LEE Big stopper and being unsuccessful, I have opted for the newest hitech pro stop.

Time will tell...
 
If you don't need a square then the Haida Pro ones are pretty good. Much prefer mine to the B&W one I had previously.
 
markmullen said:
I had the original Hitech 10 stop, I wasn't impressed, although I've not tried the current model.

I am very happy with my Lee Big Stopper.

For stock try Speedgraphic, Dale Photographic and Robert White.
Click to expand...

I have both the Big stopper and the latest Hitech 10 stop.

The Hitech is very good, it actually seems slightly more neutral than the Big stopper. If I was after a 10 stop filter and really couldnt get the Lee I'd probably get the Hitech.

I still prefer my big stopper because it's glass rather than plastic and seems to have better definition than the Hitech. My big stopper is more like 11 stops than 10 as well which is handy for daytime long exposures especially combined with a 0.9 pro glass giving me around 14 stops!
 
I had the original Hitech and now the IRND version. IRND is much improved, and I prefer it to having a big stopper as it's less fragile.
 
Ive just received the new hitech IRND. Not used it yet. Im off to scotland on monday for a week so plenty of opportunities to use it....
 
Something to think about - irrespective of brand, there is variation in the actual strength of the big stoppers - even Lee state an amount of tolerance. Mine needs a multiplication factor of 1,600 over the standard exposure rather than the 1,024 that would be the case for being spot on 10 stops.
Have a play with yours in a controlled environment and work out just how much you need to multiply your exposure by - when you're talking several minutes per exposure knowing this accurately can save you a lot of time out in the field by getting the exposure right first time. I used the approach of matching the with and without histograms on images taken to work out the actual strength of my big stopper.
 
Hi Krisstiffer,

Im new to landscapes and excuse my ignorance but what you just wrote went straight over my head..;)
 
No worries.......
A big stopper is normally a 10 stop filter - it cuts the light reaching the sensor down to around 1,000th of what it would be without the filter. This is so dark that you normally can't use your camera's meter to work out the exposure, focus or effectively do much while the filter is in place.

When it comes to getting the right exposure with the big stopper what you would normally do is work out what is correct without the filter using your cameras meter - let's say for the sake of argument this is 1/10th of a second at f/11. So to get the correct exposure with the filter in place you need to multiply the shutter speed by 1,000 - in this case that would give you a 100 second exposure. You would then use either manual or the bulb settings to give you that shutter speed. Bearing in mind that with a big stopper these times can go into minutes so bulb and a cable release are usually the way to go.

Now the thing is that there is variation in just how dark each individual filter is - it may not be 10 stops exactly - I know mine isn't. So multiplying by 1,000 might not be the right amount for your particular filter and in my case would lead to a very underexposed image. I worked out that the right number for mine is 1,600. So if the shutter speed required without the filter in place is 1/10th of a second, with my big stopper I'll give it a 160 second exposure.

Because of the long, sometimes minutes, exposure times needed with big stoppers, getting the right exposure by trial and error can take a long time - so it's best to know just how much you need to 'dial in' before going out on an expedition!

The way I did it was to take a photo - I just used my back garden - without the filter in place. I then started taking photos with the big stopper in place using longer shutter speeds and comparing each of the histograms of the images until the one from an image with the filter in place was that same as the histogram from the original image. From this I was able to tell that for my particular filter I needed to use a shutter speed 1,600 times as long in order to get the correct exposure with the filter.

Hope that's a bit clearer :)
 
In essence, you may need a longer exposure than expected as the Big Stopper may be more than ten stops. Don't forget to take into account fading light too as you might calculate your anticipated exposure but then be frustrated if light levels fall during said exposure. Fun and games waiting ten minutes for the shot to cook.

Edit: As above! ;o0
 
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Thanks krisstiffer for that excellent lesson. It makes a lot more sense now. Really appreciate that.

Thanks milou for you input to.

Im looking forward to trying it out but didnt realize so much thought process went in to it.

Once again thank you.
 
No worries - just seen where you live - I'm in Howe Bridge ;)
 
You'll have to let me know how Scotland goes - thinking of getting up there for the beginning of September. Could always arrange some local trips if you get the landscape bug!!
 
milou said:
If you don't need a slot-in filter, consider a Heliopan 10 stop: http://www.teamworkphoto.com/heliopan-neutral-density-filter-stops-p-10221.html I've used one for the past seven years without issue. B+W also make one e.g. http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/filters/b-w-77mm-110-neutral-density-filter.html
Click to expand...

I used a Hitech one for a while, but wasn't impressed with it. The foam gasket tends to get in the way on wide angle shots. I've since bought a Heliopan 10 stop and it's fantastic. Almost no colour cast from it.
 
Colour cast on the hitech was tough to loose in post. Upgraded to the Lee, money well spent.
 
Another shout for the Heliopan 10 stopper here, used one last year and was very impressed. Need to get another one this year for the 28-70 L II.
 
I hope this isn't a hijacking of the thread but I have a question re: 10 stops. Other than particularly bulbous lenses, is there a benefit to having a square 10 stop in a holder over the traditional screw in ones? The benefits are obvious with ND grads but I hadn't thought about it with 10 stops until earlier.
 
Changing composition, refocussing etc is all much easier with slot in filters, I just pull the filter holder off, align the next shot and pop the filter holder back on. It is also easy to use ND grads in combination with a 10 stop, and if you decide you need less than 10 stops, but have your grads, CPL etc in place already, replacing it with a 3 stop or whatever is much easier.
 
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