Filter Holder Systems

phild2k · Feb 17, 2017

I no longer trust my own judgement in this area having made several bad purchases in recent times. So I thought I would take it to the fine people of this community to offer some recommendations and, perhaps, even find consensus.

What is the best (yes, I know "best" is subjective) filter holder system for a 77mm thread?

Additionally, who, in your opinion, makes the best 100 x 100mm (4x4") filters (especially ND filters) from the following companies:

Formatt HiTech
Cokin
LEE
B+W
Singh-Ray
NiSi
Tiffen

Thank you!

phild2k · Feb 20, 2017

Yeah I agree, they're all terrible!

TCampbell · Feb 21, 2017

I don't have experience with all of these, but...

Tiffen are low-end filters - so if you want "best" then that's out. Also I don't believe they make square slide-in filters (thread-on only).

B+W make very good filters, but so far as I know, they're also only round thread-on filters (not slide in filters for filter-holder systems).

I have no experience with NiSi.

Cokin are entry-level slide-in filters. The holder system is a bit cheap - but it works fine. I have one in the 84mm width and it doesn't get used anymore.

Today I use the Lee system (100mm) holders and I have a few of them (one of which has the hood - which expands or retracts using an accordion bellows style design -- but it's stiff so if you pull it out to lengthen it or push it in to flatten it it will pretty much stay where you put it). I much prefer how the Lee holder attaches to the adapter ring and to the camera lens. Also, Lee has 'wide angle' adapters in addition to the standard adapter rings. These really just have to do with how far back the holder mounts relative to the filter rings. The "wide" adapter is able to hold the filter holder closer to the lens -- to avoid the filter holder from vignetting the edges of the field of view on a wide angle lens. Also, the Lee holders come with 3-slots for mounting the filters, but it's designed in a way that it's basically three stackable 1-slot modules. So if you only want 1 slot... or 2 slots... you don't have to attach all three. This is nice if you are using ultra-wide lenses and think the 3rd slot out front may cause vignetting.

Just about everyone who makes slide-in filters will have them available in the 100mm (aka 4") width size. So if the filter "holder" is designed to handle the 100mm wide filters, then you can get the filters from anyone -- e.g. if you want to put Sing-Ray filters in a Lee filter holder... not a problem as long as the width is correct.

Any size *other* than the 100mm size seems to vary by brand. Some make a 130mm some make a 150mm, etc. but these are less universal -- whereas the 100mm size seems to be much more common.

I think Singh-Ray only makes filters -- I don't think they make a holder.

I have not used the Formatt HiTech system.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my Lee system. I should mention that the filters are generally always resin (not glass) but if you pick up a circular polarizer then that filter will be real glass (not resin). Lee makes a system where you can attach a round CPL filters, OR you can slide-in a square filter. But if you do this, you may want a double filter holder kit. There's an adapter that lets you stack the 2nd filter holder onto the front of the first filter holder so they rotate independently. This way you have the ability to independently rotate the CPL without having to rotate the grad filters. But I did notice that the square slide-in (glass) filter will develop chips on the edges. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably get their round CPL (they swap out the front slot so that the round CPL can go in that spot and rotate independent of the filters.)