As a Professional Photographer who runs Landscape Photography workshops centred around the use of filters to get the image right in camera I have been getting more and more frustrated with the waiting list for Lee Filters my customers are experiencing so decided to do some digging around the internet to see what alternatives people are recommending.

It now seems common knowledge that Cokin’s “ND” filters give a strong magenta colour cast when layering up the filters, what I was surprised at was that Hitech still seem to be getting good reviews with regards to colour cast. Having moved from Hitech to Lee Filters over 3 years ago I was surprised people are still offering them as a viable alternative to Cokin filters – perhaps I just have a bad set? A series of thumbnails taken yesterday down on a South Coast beach shows immediately how bad my Hitech filters are…

There must be an alternative to Lee Filters, not just cost wise but also the problem with the 6month + waiting list we seem to be currently facing?

I recently had a customer come down to Dorset for a One to One workshop and he bought with him some filters I hadn’t yet seen, although he couldn’t remember the name of them he told me the cost and where he got them from so after seeing his results and lack of colour cast off I went to investigate exactly what and how good these filters are. I found what I think were his filters, Kood are offering packs of 2 “Grey Gradient” filters for £19.99 and 2 “Neutral Density” filters for £19.99 also, certainly you can’t argue with the price… but are they any good?

First look at the Kood filters showed that they were a little blue when compared to the Hitech and Lee filters, although it was hard to get a direct comparison due to Kood supplying their filters in x2 and x4 rather than Lee and Hitech working in 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9. This got a little confusing as the company selling the Koods that I purchased through were advertising the x2 as a one stop filter and the x4 a 2 stop whereas Lee and Hitech say their 0.3 is a One stop and their 0.6 a 2 stop which, in my experience, is very accurate– more on that later.

But photographing filters against a white background isn’t going to tell me how they perform, I needed to get out to a location where I could put them to the test so off I went down to a couple of locations in West Dorset I am using in my new 2012 West Dorset Workshop.

The first location I chose was specifically chosen for its’ simplicity to show the filters in their best light. The beach down at Seatown has beautifully golden pebbles and miles of shoreline where the waves are usually sufficient to give good fluffy water effects. I was shooting about 5pm (a couple of hours before sunset expecting no sunset colour in the sky which could skew the results) so I knew I would be able to get about 1-2 seconds shutter speed with the Lees and the Hitechs and used a 2 stop grad plus a 2 stop and 3 stop ND filter to give me the time I wanted and to show the extent of how my Hitech filters colour cast when layering up the filters… These are the results of the first shot:

Lee Filters                                                    Hitech Filters                                               Kood Filters

Wow well what a surprise! I couldn’t get the slow water I wanted with the Koods and even using the “Dark Grey Gradient GG2” filter (which should be a 2 stop) the sky wasn’t as well exposed as the Hitech and Lees (when using 0.6 grads) were showing, BUT, VERY LITTLE colour cast  from the Koods when using 3 filters (the GG2 + ND2 + ND4) and the colour cast was only very slightly blue, certainly nowhere near as offensive as the magenta Hitechs!

Onto another location to run the comparison again, this time the cloud was a little lighter but I stuck with the same combination of filters as the sky was still showing 2 stops difference from the foreground so on the Hitechs and Lee Filters I was using a 0.6 + 0.9 ND + 0.6 ND Grad and on the Koods the ND2+ND4+GG2 grad so again trying to push the colour casts you can get when layering up the filters.

Here are the results and again you can see the magenta tint of the Hitechs compared to the beautiful colour the Lee filters give you and the very slight blue tint from the Koods.

Lee Filters                                                     Hitech Filters                                             Kood Filters

About 30 minutes before sunset now and I am hoping I can really slow down the shutter however as always the clouds and sky have a different idea and the sun peeped out between some heavy cloud stopping me from slowing everything down as much as I wanted, however again you can see the difference in colour cast – I’ve added in a Lee 10stop (or Big Stopper) shot into this series, can you see my Big Stopper gives a blue colour cast? I was lucky enough to get one of the early production models and apparently this colour tint has now been corrected.

Lee Filters – Big Stopper                                                           Lee Filters

Hitech Filters                                                                             Kood Filters

And finally, the sun has set… The Lee filters are coping well, (although a little under exposed using the same set up as before which I wanted to do so the filters remained constant throughout the comparison and every time I got the sea exposed correctly the sun was too bright – needed a 3 stop but it isn’t about great images – is it?!) The Koods are still doing well although getting frustrated I get can’t more water movement with the combination I have, the Hitechs that allegedly “don’t colour cast” well…

Lee Filters

Hitech Filters                                                                             Kood Filters

So in conclusion, this hasn’t been written to sing the praises of Lee Filters, we all know how good they are but with the high cost and slow availability issue they are currently facing I wanted to see if there is a more cost effective alternative that produces similar results. The answer I think is YES – the Koods certainly gave some great results compared to the Hitechs and I am now going to find if I can get some darker Kood filters so they can produce the same results I am used to from using my Lee Filters. Well done KOOD!

 ****PLEASE NOTE – none of the images have been edited and are the RAW file re-saved as a JPG for size****

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me, Helen Rushton on helen@seelifethroughthelens.com. I run Landscape Photography Workshops in Hampshire and Dorset all based around getting the image right in camera with the use of filters. Please feel free to leave your comments

2012 Landscape Photography Workshop dates now online, please visit our workshop page and join a group where you can Master the art of making stunning landscape images in camera at great locations in Dorset and Hampshire including Portland’s stunning Coastline, the Isle of purbeck, Ancient Headlands and New forests, and NEW FOR 2012, West Dorset including the infamous the Cobb at Lyme Regis. Groups are kept small to ensure you get all the help and attention you need. To see the locations and dates, please CLICK HERE. For more information or to book your workshop please contact Helen on 07866 440740 or 01794 516821 or helen@seelifethroughthelens.com

Dorset and Hampshire are often overlooked when it comes to Landscape Photography with many enthusiasts heading to Cornwall, the Lake District and Scotland but last week’s group course was a great example of how you can take stunning landscape images with really simple landscapes.

On a See Life Through The Lens Landscape Photography Workshop you learn how to compose great images and how to use filters to ensure great exposures throughout your images that then require very little post production work – each of the 4 images below took no longer than 5 minutes each to edit as the majority of the work had already been done in camera, afterall I’m a photographer not a digital artist!

Last Thursday and Friday was a Group Workshop in and around Hampshire and Dorset (Ancient Headlands and New Forests), fortunately for Vera she was the only participant on the course which meant two days of my undivided attention and we were blessed with some fantastic sunrises and sunsets mixed in this some great daytime locations. Vera has been shooting for many years and originally started her photography hobby using slide film which she loved and our mission was to take everything she knew from her slide days and put them into digital format. I learnt my camera skills in film days and still use the same principles when shooting digital making sure that everything I can see is in the image so the editing time is reduced, I’m not a fan of changing skies etc and I make my crop decisions in camera knowing I’ll change an image into a square or letterbox format.

Both Vera and I had a great couple of days and I look forward to seeing some of her images when she’s had a chance between playing golf and bridge to edit them!

I am really excited to let you know that the final preparations are being made for the launch of our BRAND NEW LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE that will be in West Dorset. I have found some stunning locations including The Cobb at Lyme Regis and fantastic beaches and headlands in the area where you can learn and practise how to make stunning images in camera through using manual functions, ND Filters and excellent compositional ideas.

See Life Through The Lens offer One to One and Group Landscape Photography Workshops (groups of no more than 4 people) that are friendly and fun and open to camera users of all levels including complete beginners! Run by Professional Photographer, Helen Rushton LBIPP, you will be shown how to take stunning photographs and learn why they are stunning so you can take your new found knowledge to any location in the world and get great results!

For more information please contact Helen on 07866 440740 or 01794 516821, email helen@seelifethroughthelens.com

The Isle of Purbeck is a perfect setting in which to run landscape photography courses with many stunning locations on offer where attendants can practise their new found knowledge of getting the image right in camera by the use of filters and composition and this weekend was no exception when Jo, James and Peter came down to join me for a 2 day group workshop.

Meeting up at 8pm on Friday evening to run through some theory behind how I create my landscape images and to set out the agenda for the weekend we all retired early to prepare for the 0530 start when we headed into Swanage for the first dawn shoot of the weekend.

With a mix of DSLR and compact cameras Jo, James and Peter quickly got to grips with shooting in manual mode and using the filters to give great exposure across their images. Through the weekend we visited iconic locations including Kimmeridge bay, where we were treated to a lovely sunset and Corfe Castle at dawn which was unfortunately rather wet and miserable but great for those moody black and white images and all came away with some great images from our exciting new location!

Here are a few of my favourite images from the weekend…

  See Life through the Lens run both group and individual landscape photography workshops in and around Dorset and Hampshire where you will learn how to shoot stunning landscape images in camera without the need for lengthy processing skills. We will shortly be announcing our 2012 dates including a BRAND NEW LOCATION for more information please join our Facebook group for updates