First test
SPECS › Prices Deluxe kit £499.99. Also available: Discover kit £199.99, Develop kit £264.99, Aspire kit £349.99 › In the box LEE85 filter holder 0.6 ND medium grad 0.9 ND medium grad Big Stopper LEE85 polariser LEE85 system pouch 50ml ClearLEE filter wash Cleaning cloth 58mm, 67mm and 72mm adapter rings › Other adapters 37mm, 37.5mm, 39mm, 40mm, 40.5mm, 43mm, 46mm, 49mm, 52mm, 55mm, 58mm, 60mm, 62mm, 67mm and 72mm Contact: leefilters.com
AWB
5600K
IMAGES Big Stopper test shots were taken on a Fujifilm X-E3 set to AWB and in a range of manual Kelvin settings. The 5600K shot looked pretty accurate
THEBIGSTOPPER The Lee Big Stopper almost single- handedly popularised long-exposure photography. The original Big Stopper gave very blue results when used with the AWB setting of most cameras and the advice was to set a manual white-balance setting of 10,000K to counteract this. Many photographers dealt with the
issue in processing and, of course, it wasn’t an issue for black & white work. That situation has evolved over time and current Big Stoppers don’t suffer in the same manner, as you can see here. Used with the Fujifilm X-E3 in AWB, the end result looks almost spot on – there’s just a very minor magenta tinge with that
camera. If I wanted to use a manual white-balance value on this camera, I’d be happy with 5600K. Honestly, though, I think I would stick with the convenience of AWB. With every camera and situation different, you should do your own test to identify your preferred WB setting. It’d also be worth testing filter factor, too, in case there
is variance with what’s claimed. Shooting an exposure bracket, our sample spot on at 10EV. The LEE85 Big Stopper has a foam gasket on one side, just like the 100mm system filter. This gave a snug fit with the holder and there were no issues with light seepage, even when the camera/lens was out in direct sun.
ABOVE The LEE85 hand-dipped resin grads have a handling tab so it’s easy to keep your fingers off the working area. Usefully, the tab has the filter’s name on it
for the older system. One centimetre might not sound like much, but it means no vignetting when using a lens like the FujifilmXF10-24mm f/4 at its widest setting – there’s was vignetting with the Seven5 system. The aluminium LEE85 holder comes with pairs of plastic slots to take one, two or three filters, with the polariser clipping to the end of the holder. Swapping slots is simple and a tool is supplied. The holder clips on to the adapter ring and has the same locking mechanism as the revamped 100 holder. It can be fully locked so it stays put on the ring, half locked (so you can rotate the holder, but it stays locked on to the ring) or neutral, where the holder rotates freely and can be quickly detached from the adapter ring. It works well and is great in use once you get used to it. Lee’s offering a full range of filters for its new system including standard filters, grads and NDs, including the 6EV Little Stopper and the 10EV Big Stopper. The grad filters feature a tab grip for handling so you can handle and use the filters without touching the filter zone itself. The two strong NDs also have thumb guides to help precise positioning in the holder. I tested the filters using a Fujifilm X-E3 and Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II with various lenses, shooting in Raw and at different white-balance settings. Everything worked as it should have done. The adapter rings are precisely engineered so there are no issues with crossed threads, and the holder fits securely and the three-position lock worked well. I did some outdoor testing of the filters and also took some indoor shots using a test chart to check out the impact on image quality of using one or more filters (see the panel). WC
FILTER PERFORMANCE
No filter
ABOVE The kit comes with moulded slots to enable the use of one, two or three slide-in filters and a tool to help the changeover procedure
To shoot our test chart, we used a Nikon D850 with a 50mm f/1.4 lens at f/11 at ISO 100. A tripod was used and the shutter released with exposure delay mode. In theory, placing anything in front of the lens risks a drop-off in quality. Much of the time, you’ll use one filter at a time – be that a grad, ND or polariser – but there are times when you need the effect of two filters, say an extreme ND with an ND grad, and very occasionally you may add a polariser. The chart was lit by two LED lights and a control shot was taken without any filter then shots taken with each filter on its own. Next, I took shots with combinations of two filters and, finally, with all three, a grad, polariser and Big Stopper. The Raws were processed in Lightroom with the same amount of clarity and sharpening added. The LEE85 filters put in an impressive performance. I compared shots at 100% and 200% on a 4K monitor and saw very little deterioration in image quality when one or two filters were used and even with three filters resolution looked almost identical to the unfiltered shot. Perhaps with three filters the finest details were less well resolved but we’re talking fine margins on a test chart here, so whether you would see any differences in actual practical situations is debatable.
PROS Great performance in terms of resolution and colour balance, tabs on the grads CONS The Deluxe kit is a significant investment, resin grads need careful handling perform very well and up to the high standards we’d expect from Lee, so the system can be heartily recommended. Verdict Discontinuing one system and replacing it with another is a serious decision, but Lee has done the right thing here and while the Seven5 system was good, there were potential issues with ultra- wide-angles. The LEE85 gets round those without sacrificing the core values of the brand and adding some innovation, too, with the redesigned holder and tabbed filters. The filters in the kit
Big Stopper
Big Stopper and 0.6ND grad
Big Stopper, 0.6ND grad and polariser
Issue 80 | Photography News 27
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