Your most used ND Grad filters

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Simon
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I am looking to purchase some ND Grad filters, my budget is around £200-£250. I want to get the best quality and VFM. I am wondering what your most used ND Grads are? My use will be New Forest (think flat) landscapes and Dorset/Jurassic coast seascapes. I have done some pricing up and can get Lee filter holder, wide angle adapter, pouch, cloth, ND 3 stop hard grad and ND 2 stop soft grad for this, give or take.
My other option is to go for one of the Lee starter kits and supplement it with additional filters.
Or, to forget Lee altogether and go with Hitech's.
Any thoughts/advice on what to go for much appreciated.
TIA,
Simon.
 
I'm hardly a Joe Cornish or Charlie Waite, but find Lees to be the best of the best..

I have a full set of soft ND grads (0.3,0.6 and 0.9) and one hard 0.6 grad.

I use the soft 0.6 the most.

Good luck in getting anything Lee at the moment: their products seem to be like golddust :(

I'd suggest you use the hard edged grads if you have a flat horizon and I think like me, you'll find the 0.6 the most used..

The starters kit, featuring the 0.6 hard edged grad, cloth, pouch and pro glass 0.6 ND represent good value, and you can then build up your collection as and when and perhaps invest in a 10 filter pouch for about £32...
 
I use the Lee filter holder with Hightech 100 Grads, I use the 0.6 (2 stop) and 0.9 (3 stop) Soft Grads the most.

I find Hightech to be excellent (both in Cokin "P" fit and Lee)

This shot here:


4300461358_07f5402dd0_o.jpg

​

was taken with a Hightech 100 0.9x Soft Grad
 
Same as Puddleduck - Lee holder as it is sturdier and hitech filters.

I've got 1, 2 and 3 stop ND as well as 1, 2 and 3 stop NDG hard.

I've also got the Lee 105mm CPL which is amazing
 
I use Lee's as well, and can't fault them in the slightest. Never used hitechs though, so can't comment on the comparison.

Cokin are great if you can accurate choose which one(s) you need and expose properly. I personally found the Cokins gave a purple cast if you under expose slightly. Lee's do not suffer from this in my experience
 
I had some problems with Lees, so bought Singh Ray "Galen Rowell" from the US. Expensive but the exchange rate was better then....

I have 1 stop and 2 stop hard ND's; I get great natural-looking skies with a 1 stop and polarising filter.

If I was buying a soft ND (and I'm thinking about it,) I'd probably go for a 1.5 stop.

I don't bother with a filter holder, I just hold the filter against the rim of the lens. It's easy enough if you're using a tripod, and possible with practice if not. A holder would just be too much faff and fiddle for me.

What I'd really like is a pouch that holds up to 3 ND grads which will fit on a waist belt! Anyone know if they're available?
 
jerry12953 said:
I had some problems with Lees, so bought Singh Ray "Galen Rowell" from the US. Expensive but the exchange rate was better then....


What I'd really like is a pouch that holds up to 3 ND grads which will fit on a waist belt! Anyone know if they're available?
Click to expand...

If you have any problems with Lee equipment, call their head office in Andover and you'll get help, and I'd be interested to find out what the problem was, please let me know. It sounds as if it was some time ago, put please let me know.
Regarding the pouches, again Lee have these acessories for sale via such people as Robert White.
Let me know if you require any further info.
George.
 
Regarding choice of filters, I have both hard and soft and use the hard much more.
When you look at a hard filter, it sems to be a very rapid transition from dark to light, however if you think about it, the filter is very close to the lens's front element and so the effective transition is much less rapid ..I hope I make myself clear!

So in answer to the OP, my suggestion would be 0.6 and 0.9 hard, with a 0.3 hard next then a 0.6 soft, in order of usefulness for landscape work.
George
 
George said:
If you have any problems with Lee equipment, call their head office in Andover and you'll get help, and I'd be interested to find out what the problem was, please let me know. It sounds as if it was some time ago, put please let me know.
Regarding the pouches, again Lee have these acessories for sale via such people as Robert White.
Let me know if you require any further info.
George.
Click to expand...

George, it was a few years ago, I got strange colour casts with mine, somewhere in the warm region but it was difficult to say exactly what. Lee replaced it immediately, but the second was the same!

The guy at Lee said it might have been from a bad batch, but 2 from the same batch.....:thinking:

The only thing I could think of otherwise was a mismatch between the Lees and the Zeiss lenses I was using at the time.

The SinghRay one, when I got it, was perfect.

I've still got the 2nd lee one, I'll try it with my canon lenses one day.....

Re the pouches, I'll have to have a look at the Lee website, they certainly didn't do what I wanted when I wanted it. I had one made but it's a bit scrappy now.
 
Jerry, if you want a Lee one, and can't find it, please PM me.
George
 
Strobe said:
I am looking to purchase some ND Grad filters, my budget is around £200-£250. I want to get the best quality and VFM. I am wondering what your most used ND Grads are? My use will be New Forest (think flat) landscapes and Dorset/Jurassic coast seascapes. I have done some pricing up and can get Lee filter holder, wide angle adapter, pouch, cloth, ND 3 stop hard grad and ND 2 stop soft grad for this, give or take.
My other option is to go for one of the Lee starter kits and supplement it with additional filters.
Or, to forget Lee altogether and go with Hitech's.
Any thoughts/advice on what to go for much appreciated.
TIA,
Simon.
Click to expand...

Hi Simon. I was in a similar position recently. I went for the DSLR starter kit and then added on the Lee 1 and 3 stop hard grads. I photography simillar areas to you.

If I was to do it again I think I wouldn't bother with the 1 stop and maybe go for a 2 stop soft as well. The 2 stop ND (not graduated) is also invaluable.

I really feel investing in filters has taken my landscape on a level. I am sure you won't regret what you do.
 
puddleduck said:
I use the Lee filter holder with Hightech 100 Grads, I use the 0.6 (2 stop) and 0.9 (3 stop) Soft Grads the most.

I find Hightech to be excellent (both in Cokin "P" fit and Lee)

This shot here:


4300461358_07f5402dd0_o.jpg

​

was taken with a Hightech 100 0.9x Soft Grad
Click to expand...

That picture!

Wow!

To be honest, I havent really considered using flters, after reading someone saying whats the point of putting cheap glass in front of expensive glass, the money spent in achieving sharpness is lost by putting a filter on.

But having seen the above pic, I'm now beginning to wonder about looking into filters, my area of interest is military aviation, and if a filter can make a difference to the skies, then I may have to consider them.

I'm guessing a filter would have made a huge difference to this:

IMG_2993.jpg
 
48thEagle said:
To be honest, I havent really considered using flters, after reading someone saying whats the point of putting cheap glass in front of expensive glass, the money spent in achieving sharpness is lost by putting a filter on.

But having seen the above pic, I'm now beginning to wonder about looking into filters, my area of interest is military aviation, and if a filter can make a difference to the skies, then I may have to consider them.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between using an ND or NDG to balance exposures in a picture to actually enhance the image and just putting a UV filter to 'protect' the lens
 
I also use the Lee filter system - adapter, filter holder and filters. Never had any issue with casts at all. I find I use the 2 and 3 stop filters the most . Your idea of a 2 stop soft edge and a 3 stop hard edge seems a good starting point.
 
I use Hitech 'soft' ND Grads as most of my landscapes are higland scenes so the 'hard' grads tend to cut into the land itself. Of the 3, 6 and 9 - I probably use the 6 most often.

48thEagle said:
To be honest, I havent really considered using flters, after reading someone saying whats the point of putting cheap glass in front of expensive glass, the money spent in achieving sharpness is lost by putting a filter on.
Click to expand...

Uneducated_Rick said:
There's a difference between using an ND or NDG to balance exposures in a picture to actually enhance the image and just putting a UV filter to 'protect' the lens
Click to expand...

Yes - enhancing sky is obviously handy but they do come into their own when you want to use a slower shutter speed to capture movement such as the waves on a beach without having a blown out sky.
 
jerry12953 said:
To be honest, it would have made a boring sky into a slightly darker boring sky!

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, even with Lee filters:)
Click to expand...

Thats fair enough, I didn't know if it would make a significant difference to the sun glare to the left of the pic.
 
48thEagle said:
Thats fair enough, I didn't know if it would make a significant difference to the sun glare to the left of the pic.
Click to expand...

It would have done, but it would have darkened the whole sky equally.

What ND grads are best for is bringing down the luminosity(?) of the sky generally, and the clouds specifically, to closer to that of the foreground.
 
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