Choosing filters.

I am considering the purchase of ND grad filters to use with my landscape shots, particularly with transparencies to try and avoid 'burnt out sky syndrome' but also for BW work.
I assume that my best option is square filters and I have sort of decided that Lee are too expensive and cokin are more for the effects market. I am considering Hitech 85mm soft edge NDs with a Cokin P holder (or Hitech's own plastic adapter) but have also seen cromatek filters with thr hooded holder (which seems a good idea). Has anyone any views on this choice, anyone any experience of Hitech or Cromatek, particularly the latter.

For info I shoot 35mm or MF with 28mm 35mm being the widest angle. My landscape stuff is mainly in the local heathland/forest.

Thanks for your responses
CJB

digiconvert said:

I am considering the purchase of ND grad filters to use with my landscape shots, particularly with transparencies to try and avoid 'burnt out sky syndrome' but also for BW work.
I assume that my best option is square filters and I have sort of decided that Lee are too expensive and cokin are more for the effects market. I am considering Hitech 85mm soft edge NDs with a Cokin P holder (or Hitech's own plastic adapter) but have also seen cromatek filters with thr hooded holder (which seems a good idea). Has anyone any views on this choice, anyone any experience of Hitech or Cromatek, particularly the latter.

For info I shoot 35mm or MF with 28mm 35mm being the widest angle. My landscape stuff is mainly in the local heathland/forest.

Thanks for your responses
CJB

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Doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot. I've tested numerous filter systems reasonably rigorously and quality has to be truly awful (e.g. 3mm = 1/8 inch window glass) before you see a detectable loss in resolution/sharpness. FWIW I use Cromatek quite happily with e.g. 38/4.5 Biogon on Alpa.

Ctein, a much better experimentalist than I, reports similar results.

Cheers,

R. (www.rogerandfrances.com -- and maybe I should post a filter test article there in The Photo School)

If you ever plan to use these grads for color, I'd avoid Cokin, which are not as neutral as Lee, Hitech, and the other fancier ones.

Color grads, however, while tacky for color, can be interesting for B&W. A tobacco grad can increase contrast in the sky as well as darkening it, without changing the appearance of the foreground.

While I don't think there is a big problem with flatness affecting resolution or sharpness across filter brands, coating really does make a difference for glass filters, and brass rings are good things.

David A. Goldfarb said:

If you ever plan to use these grads for color, I'd avoid Cokin, which are not as neutral as Lee, Hitech, and the other fancier ones.

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Sorry for my earlier post. You are100 per cent right, perhaps more, about ND grads. I should have remembered this. The usual biases are green or purple.

More than 100%? Yes; look at some of those color biases...

Cheers,

R.

I have a lot of experience with HiTech and some with Lee and Cokin. Whilst I can't speak for Cokin the other brands in the market are C39 optical resin - the same as used for most spectacles these days. They are all prone to scratching. A set of grads lasts me two/three years but I'm sure there are many people more careful with their eqipment than me.

Most of the Hitech I've had have been materially neutral, but I had a dialogue and exchange from them with one set a few years back because they were purple-brown. I have seen several people on Photo.net complain about non-neutrality, and I've personally seen at least one Lee filter with the same colour cast.

That said, you can buy HiTech direct from the factory www.formatt.co.uk/hitech ( and their prices for sets of three hard or soft are a bargain). It also short circuits any return/replace dialogues if they aren't neutral, which you can see by placing the filters on white paper in a north light. They haven't been reluctant to replace anything.

Finally I should say that Hitech soft are very softly graduated indeed- more so than other brands, and Hitechs hard -edge are not so hard as others either. I get more use from the latter, and I could see lots of circumstances where HiTech's soft edge would not give the effect one needs.