Lee filter system

Well after about a month of stress out about what to buy to beable to head in the direction with my photography I want to head I have brought a Fotoman 6x17 with a 90mm lens ( will do a review later), but now my drama still hasn't finished

Looking into the Lee filter system as new lens has a 95mm thread so Cokin P series is out. Also now need to buy new grads and polariser.

I like Singh-Ray filters but the grads are $65 more than the Lee ones, when you need to buy 4 at minimum that's a huge difference. Anyone here use Lee ND grads and have opinions on them.

I also need a polariser and have always loved Singh-Rays Warming polariser. They don't make one big enough and if they did I could only imagine price. I'm looking at the Lee polariser or a B&W. which isn't cheap either.

It's going onto a Schneider 90mm f/5.6 Super Angulon XL. This already has a centre filter on the lens.

Also what do I need to fit the filters, I have only ever used a Cokin P series holder and adaper ring, Do Lee work the same

All help greatly appreciated

Thanks

My Schneider 90mm f5.6 Super Angulon is threaded 82mm and I'm able to use the Cokin P holder and HiTech P ND grads. I simply bought a linear 82mm polarizer from eBay for not much money.


Kent in SD

At one time Cokin (Minolta) made a filter series larger than the P. Don't know if they still do or not. Both Cokin and Lee have fixtures for holding the larger filters. The only time I've used either the larger Cokins or Lees was on rental cameras with "compendium" style filter systems. Tossing a lot of names here about which I know little, but I think you can use them to dig a little deeper and find solutions.

Keith,

I do use Lee system, and I like it very much. It's pricey, but well made. As for polariser, it's possible to buy adapter for 105 mm round filters. I much prefer this to idea of square polariser. I use Heliopan, and it's optically very good. And for warming, I use Coral grad filter.

Cheers,
Marko

Hi Keith,

You've entered the world of exotic and expensive filtration!

I can't help you with the Lee versus Singh-Ray grads, but I do have a few comments on your set-up.

A 90mm on 6X17 gives you a very wide field of view - so you have to watch out for mechanical vignetting. I use a Schneider 58XL on 4X5 where this is a potential problem - the 58XL uses the same center filter as the 90XL.

To avoid vignetting in this situation I use the Lee push-on adapter. Rather than using an adapter ring it is literally designed to 'push' on to the center filter. The advantage of this approach is that the whole assembly ends up being very close to the front of the filter. I then have it configured with one filter slot and the accessory ring which I can screw a 110mm B+W polarizer on to.

Cheers,
Eric

When I started having to deal with center filters for LF wide angle lenses, my Cokin and Singh Ray filters were put aside and I purchased a Lee system. Besides the expense, I have no regreats. The filters are very high quality and color neutral. I also think their grads have softer edges so the filter line is less noticable.

- Dan.

Thanks guys,

Will look into this push-on adapter, and accesory ring for the polariser. Anywhere you can recommend to buy the system from.

Thanks again for the feedback

Robert White in the UK: http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/lee.htm.

Thanks all, didn't even think of Robert White, works out much cheaper than the places I have looked.