Fancy filters
Andy Westlake rounds up the best 100mm filter systems for landscape photography
It almost goes without saying that filters are extremely useful for landscape photography. Polarising filters can be used to control reflections, enrich colours, and deepen blue skies, while neutral density (ND) filters allow photographers to experiment with long exposures to blur the movement of water or clouds. Graduated ND (GND) filters help control the brightness range of a scene, most obviously by balancing a bright sky against a dark foreground.
Square filter holder systems are generally the most popular choice with landscape shooters, as they allow GNDs to be positioned to match the scene. They also have the advantage of allowing one set of filters to be shared across multiple lenses with different threads. While the square-filter concept was first popularised by Cokin, for a long time LEE has been the maker of choice for serious landscape photographers.
Over recent years, though, the market has expanded, and other companies have moved into the fray. This has driven a burst of innovation in a bid to make holder systems that are quicker and easier to use. In place of conventional screw-fit polarisers, there are now clip, bayonet and magnetically fitting designs, all of which aim to be easier to swap in and out. Likewise, some systems place the ND and GND filters into plastic or metal frames, which maximises their usable area and protects fragile and expensive glass filters if they’re accidentally dropped.
In this article, I’m looking at the latest filter holder systems from Formatt Hitech, Kase and NiSi in comparison to leading designs from the likes of LEE and Cokin, all of which bring different ideas to the table. I’ll examine the practicalities of using them, including how easy it is to swap the various filters in and out, and how much kit you need to carry around. Whichever of these systems you choose, you can expect to get excellent image quality without the degradation that can be caused by cheap filters.