Ok, so I actually got my hands on a piece of glass, expensive glass. And when I say glass I don’t mean a lens. On the contrary, you need a lens to use this. I actually bought a Lee Filter, and they definitely do not come cheap.
I have heard many times that Lee are one of the best filters and based on what I have read, heard and seen I can believe this. Lee Filters is a very small outfit in the UK that produce filters just like Cokin and Hi-Tech. The difference? They do it all manual. none of their processes are automated and they even make the glass or resin themselves. The waiting lists for Lee filters are long and they get filled very slowly but every one of the customers seems to be very happy when they DO get their filters.
In my case I thought i would get my feet wet with a Lee ND 10 Big Stopper. This is a 10 f-stop “light blinder” which means that it clocks light out by a factor of 10 f-stops. To put this into perspective, take a dusk or dawn shot and suppose that you would, under normal circumstances, take the shot with a 2 second exposure. If you put the Lee Big stopper in front of your lens, those 2 seconds would become 32 minutes! in order to achieve the same shot. Essentially the Lee Big Stopper multiples the time needed by 2 with every f-stop. So you end you with 4 seconds, 8 seconds, 16 seconds, 32 seconds and you barely are at 4 f-stops, this filter is 10! Nwo if your have a fast shutter speed during the day for example, you would divinde that speed. So, in case of a 1/1000th of a second exposure at f4, it would become an exposure of over a second already and you haven’t even dialled the aperture down which will slow down the shutter even more.
Why on earth would you want to do this? Simple; You can achieve stunning effects with that kind of slow down. You can also slow down the exposure during normal daytime to points that you would not normally be able to get to. This will allow you to take water flows and make them misty and milky in plain daylight.
Of course, this filter is targetted for landscapesand those kind long exposure effects and in that it is a very niche product but it is also extremely popular because Lee’s craftman ship is so high that there is nearly no color cast with this filter so it is actually very neutral density.
I will post Big Stopper samples soon, for now..here is the most expensive piece of 10x10cm glass I ever bought.
