Benro FH100M2 filter holder
Benro’s filter holder provides unparalleled ease of adjustment, as Andy Westlake finds out
Andy Westlake discovers all about this innovative design from Benro
While there’s any number of filter holders available for photographers who wish to exploit polarising, neutral density and graduated filters to enhance their images, most essentially work to the same design that’s been in use for decades. The filters slot directly into the holder and are kept in place by friction; to reposition a grad, you simply slide it up and down. While this approach works quite acceptably, it’s certainly not beyond improvement, and recently we’ve seen various attempts to re-invent the idea.
One of the most interesting new designs comes from Chinese accessories manufacturer Benro. While best known for its tripods, the firm has recently branched out into making bags and filters too. Its FH100M2 filter holder incorporates a number of novel features that aim to make photographers’ lives easier. First, filters are held in frames, which minimises light leaks, provides protection against accidental drops, and makes it easier to keep them free of marks and fingerprints. Second, a geared mechanism built into the holder allows graduated filters to be adjusted up and down quickly and precisely using a large red knob. Third, a polariser can be screwed into a rotating mount that can be easily adjusted from behind the camera, without having to remove the other filters.
At this point, it’s possible you’re still thinking of Benro as a producer of mid- quality knock- offs of Western- designed products. While this was perhaps true a decade ago, it’s fair to say the firm has moved on a long way since then. Spurred on by feedback from its users and European distributors, it has transformed itself into a genuinely high- end brand capable of building top-notch products; its Mach3 carbon-fibre tripods, for example, are absolutely superb. As a result, it’s now become one of several Chinese brands that compete at least as much on quality as on price.
How it works
Before using the FH100M2 holder system in anger, you’ll need to make sure you know your way around how it works. At this point I’d normally just recommend reading the instructions, but they’re decidedly brief and appear to have been machine-translated from Chinese to English, so it’s not quite that simple. The design is perfectly logical, but you’ll need to spend a bit of time at home mastering it before heading out to shoot.
Crucially, every filter you use will have to be mounted in a frame. While it’s easy enough to get filters in and out of their frames (see the step-by-step guide, below), you probably won’t want to do this in the field as a matter of course, so ideally you’ll need to buy a frame for every filter you use regularly. Extras cost £10.99 for a square frame and £11.99 for a rectangular one, which could quickly add up if you need a lot. Once you have all your filters in frames, it makes sense to label them.
There are three slots in the holder, and the frames can go into them either way around; there’s no ‘front’ or ‘back’. Square filters simply click into place when they’re vertically centred, and are best placed at the back of the holder, closest to the camera. For grad filters, you should first push the red adjustment knob fully in to its neutral position before sliding the filter into the holder, to avoid fouling the teethed edges of the frame.
If you want to use a polarising filter, you have to screw it on first before sliding in any square filters. The FH100M2 will accept any 82mm filter with a slim 3mm mount, although Benro would of course prefer you to buy its own. For photographers who use ultra-wideangle lenses, the firm offers the FH100M2B kit, which accepts 95mm polarisers that are less likely to cause vignetting.
Screwing in the polariser is decidedly fiddly, as the thread is recessed and freely rotating.
It’s definitely best done with the holder removed from the camera. The polariser must be screwed in fully, too, as otherwise it can block a filter that’s mounted in the rear slot from being removed. This is perhaps the most awkward aspect of the whole design.
To mount the holder onto the lens, you first have to screw on one of the supplied adapters. They’re a proprietary design and have 82mm and 77mm threads, so for smaller lenses you’ll need to use a step- up ring. The holder clips firmly in place via a sprung metal tab, and can then be rotated freely so you can position a grad at whatever angle you need to match the scene. The set-up can then be fixed in that position using a locking screw.
In practical use
It’s only really when you get out into the field and start working with the FH100M2 that you’ll appreciate just how good the design really is. Indeed, once you get used to its geared adjustment of graduated filters, you might wonder how you ever managed without – I certainly found it to be a really intuitive and precise way of working. About the only flaw is that it can be difficult to set the adjustment control to engage the central filter, although this is much more easily done by pushing the knob inwards from its back position, rather than pulling it backwards from the front.
Benro’s solution for using a polariser works pretty much perfectly, at least once you’ve managed to screw one properly into place. Build quality is difficult to fault, and the filter frames fit close together with just a minuscule gap, meaning that there’s barely any chance of light leaks spoiling your shots, even when using strong neutral density filters. Overall, the system works really well and makes shooting with filters a breeze.