Will Lee filters fit into Cokin holders?

[maccaroneski]

I'm all for getting it right in camera,. but I would have thought that in relation to (a), even the most basic software these days could replicate the effect of a coloured filter (assuming that the filter "eats" light and that is not the intended effect) and in relation to (b) see (a) above, i.e. you've got the software anyway, so the filter option will cost you more money.

[peterb666]

The effect with a coloured filter will be slightly different than that achieved with software. Essentially you are allowing more light of the colour through that matched that of the sensor and blocking varying amounts of other colour as you move away from the filter colour. I would expect that the differences between what can achieved with a colour filter and with software are in most cases quite pointless and it would be best to save the money.

Software does much more than alter colours and I don't see filters as a substitute for software and there is some stuff that is always better to try and get right with filters such as light attenuation with ND and GND filters and polarisation.

[falke]

falke, I took mine out a couple of weeks ago for the sculptures by the sea and didn't see the problem you mentioned. Are you mounting the filter on the front side of the holder or the back? If you reverse the cokin holder then the big stopper will seal better. There is still a bit of a light gap, but not much.

Of course I made a fool of myself. I just received the adapters (wide angle) and my earlier complaints are not valid anymore. Whilst the filter holder by itself would let light in as mentioned above, together with the adapter ring, the seal with the big stopper is perfect. How could I doubt the Lee engineers (stupid me). I tested it and I am very impressed. the flaring has disappeared completely. As stated in the manual I needed to cover the view finder which provided further improvement (different to flair).

However, I stand by my earlier statement that the Cokin System does not work with the Big Stopper.

[leeduguid]

I've upgraded from Cokin to HiTech (Formatt) to Lee. Don't waste your time, if you can afford it buy the Lee filters, if you can't, wait. The rest really don't compare. Your Cokins will fit in the Lee filter holder so if you want to upgrade piece by piece this is a good way to go. The Cokin holder encroaches into the frame at wide angles when stacking filters.

I recommend Lee filters all the way although the polarizing filter is very expensive. You can use the Cokin CPL as a cheap alternative with the Lee filter holder. It isn't held securely in place like the Cokin so use some bulldog clips to hold it. Check out my blog post regarding filters and filter holders (Cokin/Lee) for more info.

[peterb666]

The Cokin holder encroaches into the frame at wide angles when stacking filters.

Interesting comment. I don't know if you are referring to the P-series or the Z-Pro.

In the Z-Pro, you can reverse the lens adapter so only 1 filter is forward facing. The Z-Pro holder can also be dissassmbled, rearranged and bits moved or added, for example to have just 2 standard slots at the front or 1 standard slot and 1 wide slot (so you can use either a standard filter or a polariser).

While the P-series is not as adaptable, there is a wide-angle version which holds a single filter and it costs around $14 in Australia or $5 from eBay (presumably a clone).

I found your linked article rather amusing. The vignetting wasn't due to either the Z-Pro or Lee filter holders (which pretty much provided the same amount of vignetting - it was all due to the Canon 17-40mm lens which just happened to vignette the same without a filter holder. It is pretty bad too so you have to wonder what Canon are up to.

There does seem to be some vignetting of the corners of the frame with Cokin polariser with the corners just cut off - but you still have the 17-40mm lens playing its bit.

As for the banding issue, thats a new one to me. I have HiTech 4-stop and 8-stop filters. Neither band on my Olympus E-P1 and the 4-stopper on my Nikon D-90 (havent used the 8-stopper on that) works file too.

Colour cast is a problem from around 7-stops (individual filters or staked) with HiTech yet I know of one person using the 10-stopper that has never found an issue. Maybe there is some variation from batch to batch of the filters - but there shouldn't be.

In the larger sizes, Lee are not that more expensive than HiTech other than in the polariser so it may well be worthwhile going to Lee in 4" wide filters and then sourcing the polariser elsewhere. Does anyone have experience with the HiTech polariser?

Another option for filter holders would be the HiTech one but they use a front, ring mounted 105mm polariser on thier 4" filters and a 95mm ring mounted job on the 85mm P-series. I think this would present more problems than having the first slot for the polariser as done by Cokin.