Lee vs Hi Tech ND Grads

Broke a Lee 100mm 0.6 nd grad the other day... Looking for a replacement... Seem to be very expensive as one off replacements (@ £70ish for a single 0.6 filter at Teamwork/Dale).. Interested as to whether:

a) Hi Tech nd grads are absolutely colour neutral (particularly on long exposures) and a viable lower cost alternative?
b) there's a cheaper way of getting hold of single Lee filters?

Thanks very much

ebay or Amazon would be my first choice for used filters.

I have no personal experience of HiTech filters but I believe that Lee filters are more colour neutral. That said, it's not difficult to remove slight colour casts in PP.

You would need a crowbar to get my hi-tech 0.6 off me (or the 0.3 or 0.9)

Are they colour neutral? if you get the WB right and do not stack them - in my experience - yes

Carl

My problem is I always stack them ... Lol. The answer is that Lee are better. But I like many others settle for Hitch because of price. Only you know how much you are prepared to pay

Glad I am not the only one Alan That said - even stacked - so long as you don't stack a cpl as well (another of my habits)they are pretty good - I can normally stack 2 with no problem
carl

Thanks all for thoughts thus far... Thing is:

a) I do often stack filters... Often a cpl + an nd + nd grad
b) I also like to do as much in the camera, and as little in pp, as I can

Unless there's a strong body of opinion that says Hi Tech nd grads are actually every bit as gd as Lee's, just a bit cheaper, I'll bite the bullet and go Lee...

In truth Bill - having never used Lee - I cannot say how close the hi-tech are. Having previously used Cokin pro - I can say that they are significantly better than Cokin

You are kidding yourself with your "just a bit cheaper" - they are much cheaper. Typical tog justification

I broke the corner off my 0.6 hi-tech and replaced it for £40 making the Lee more than 75% more expensive

I can show you images with 3 grads and a cpl stacked without colour cast - I can also show you images with one grad and a cpl with masses of colour cast - user error or filter? probably user error



All joking aside - personally I find best results are gained by not mixing brands and would therefore recommend if the rest of your filters are Lee - bite the bullet and buy Lee.

Or I will swop you a perfect hi-tech set including 5 adapters - for your sub-standard broken Lee set

Carl

Hi Carl... thanks for your thoughtful responses...

Might just take a punt on a replacement HiTech out of interest and see how it compares... have read quite a few recent reviews of them that say they're up there with the Lee's... may the comparison begin...

Best

I haven't used Lees but do own 2 sets of Hitech. I have stacked 2 before and haven't noticed a particular colour cast.

As far as cost was concerned I don't use grads frequently enough to justify Lees. Hitech seem to provide me what I need at a much more reasonable price. You may have different needs though.

One thing to watch for though - one of the filters in the first set I had did not have a straight grad line (a bit wobbly at one point). I haven't heard of that before or since though so I put it down to a one-off. I doubt very much it would have affected the final image but I picked them up in the shop so exchanged that one straight away. They seemed very surprised to see the imperfection.

if it helps, this was taken with stacked Hi-Tech grads..




...there may be a slight colour cast, but far better than with the Cokins I used previously

Hi Bill, I have the Hitechs and have used them a lot over the past 12 months or so, almost always in combination with a CPL and sometimes stacked. Based on extended use here are my thoughts:

- Hitechs do give a slight colour bias to blue and cyan, more so when stacked

- It is not unpleasant and is very easy to remove in post processing - I don't think I've ever had a single negative comment on my images about the skies being a funny colour or too blue; you can judge for yourself on my Gallery images

- The slight bluey cast is more apparent on some lenses than others, e.g. is it quite noticeable on my Pentax-M 28mm F3.5, but not so much on my DA 16-45 or DA 17-70

- I don't doubt that the Lee filters are more colour neutral and give excellent IQ, but I got three Hitechs for £45 (0.3, 0.6, 0.9) and for my purposes they serve me very well indeed and I am not considering changing at this point in time. If my images were being published, it may be different

Best wishes
David

Thanks all for taking the time and trouble to respond... Very useful info as ever... Lee's hard to get hold of at the mo, making them more expensive than ever, so might just try a hi tech for the summer and see how I get on...

Best