Filters and holders NEED HELP!

I am in th market for new filters and filter holders. Which is the best brand to use? I am looking for filters for my 10-22mm and my 70-200 f2.8 lenses. Should I get 2 seperate holders for each lens? Do I need special holders, special sizes... etc for the 10-22? Any help would be appreciated!

no help? Should I ask elsewhere on this forum?

The best set-up (in my opinion) you can get is the Lee filter system. I recommend the 100mm resin filters, which are also referred to as 6" x 4" or 150mm x 100mm.

You will need an adapter ring to go on the end of your lens. I recommend the wide angle version for your 10-22mm, but that will also fit your 70-200mm. Obviously you need the 77mm size.

You also need what they call the Foundation Kit, which is the filter holder and enough (removable) parts to make a 4-slot holder. You also get a screwdriver and some different length screws with the kit, so you can add or remove filter slots. You won't need a separate holder for each lens.

The filters come with their own soft pouches, made out of the same material as cleaning cloths, but I thoroughly recommend that you get the Lee filter case, which has 10 filter slots (like pages of a book), and has a zip to close it. These are sturdy and offer great protection to the (expensive!) filters.

For the filters themselves it depends on what you want to do, but you can use them on either of your lenses. Bear in mind though that soft edge gradient filters won't be much use on the 70-200mm due to the field of view with the longer focal lengths. The same applies to the hard edge gradient filters, but to a lesser extent. I often use them on my 70-200mm at the 70mm end, but they aren't much use with the longer focal lengths.

I use the foundation kit (with three filter slots fitted and on a wide angle adapter ring) and it doesn't vignette on my 17-40mm at 17mm. Your 10-22mm on a crop sensor body has a 6-degree wider field of view than my set-up so you might get some vignetting, but you could always remove a slot if you don't need it.

If you are on a budget then you could look at Hitech filters. In my experience they aren't nearly as good as Lee, so I wouldn't recommend them unless the Lee filters are too expensive.

I hope that's of some help to you.

Mike

Wow..great information!! Thank you so very much for this! So I should use a soft grad for the 10-22mm and o the 70-200mm... but its best not to zoom with the soft grad on it? This makes sense to me, because for landscape work I do not want to zoom anyways. Thank you for the great information!

You can make good use of whichever filters you like on the 10-22mm - hard or soft edge, according to your requirements at the time.

The point I was making was when using the gradient filters with the 70-200mm. Due to the way that the perceived filter gradient is softened progressively the higher the focal length, in practice you will (more likely than not) find that only the hard edge gradient filters will have a visible gradient on the 70-200mm. There is a point where the hard edge filter will act effectively as a soft edge filter on your 70-200mm though.

At 70mm a hard edge gradient is still reasonably usable as a hard edge, but when you get up further towards 200mm the gradient is softened progressively until you cant see the edge. At some points it may well give a suitable gradient for you to use as a soft edge, but it's quite hard to judge, compared with simply putting a soft edge filter into the holder for your ultra-wide angle lens.

When buying filters, if you want a comprehensive set then you can save quite a bit of money by buying the Lee filters in sets of three (they sell hard and soft edge in 1, 2 and 3 stop sets). Check the prices against buying them individually!

As for which ones to get first, that depends on what you intend to do, but for me, photographing landscapes, I tend to use my 2-stop and 3-stop hard edge filters the most. After that it's the 3-stop soft edge. I often stack two or three of them together, especially when photographing into bright light.

Mike