Cokin Filters

[danrusso]

Hi I have a question about the type of filters which would work with Cokin filter holders.

As you may know, there are 2 types: Resin vs Glass. My questions are:

Which is best and why?
Is Cokin the best bang for the buck?
Is Cokin better over a brand like Lee?

I'm interested in ND, CP and Grad ND filters.

Thanks

 

[mwcfarms]

I have a couple of Cokin Filters the resin kind and they are fine, I also have a more expensive CP that was 3 times the money and it works just fine too. Honestly I think where your first starting out to play with filters cokins are your best bet because they are inexpensive and easy to use. Now some people have reported a purple cast to the cokin filters but if you shoot raw I don't think that will be a big issue. At least I have never had that issue. I always recommend going with square ND and graduated filters, as opposed to a circular screw in kind.

 

[Derrel]

Lee makes a pretty good filter holder system for the Coklin P-series sized filters. I dunno...most of my square filters are the Cokin resin type...I like their various diffusion filters, so scratches are not much of an issue. One thing to note when buying Cokin filters is to really look around to see which dealerships have the best prices on them. For an absolutely critical, wide-utility filter like a circular polarizer, I do not think plastic, and I do not think Cokin...I think B+W...maybe I'm old-fashioned...

 

[tirediron]

Cokin filters are very good, especially at their price point. I use a wide variety of Cokin ND and G-ND filters, but, like Derrel, prefer a "real" glass CPOL (although I did acquire a Cokin CPOL and it does a decent job). The only downside to Cokin is that when shooting toward or into the sun, you will often get a red/purple colour cast imparted on the image. This is easily controlled by shading the lens and filter. I keep an 8x10 piece of matte-black craft foam (<$ 1.00 at Wal-mart) in my bag for just this purpose. The [much] more expensive Lee and Singh-Ray filters suffer less from this colour cast problem, but, IMO, it's not enough to justify their increased cost.

 

[Stryker]

Cokin ND filters are bang for your bucks if you will use them at fast shutter speed. On long exposures, it exhibited black spots and irritating purple hues. Sold them and shifted to B+W round filters. Never had those bad photos after I shifted

 

[c.cloudwalker]

One more for the glass CP. Other than that I have a whole bunch of Cokin filters and was very happy with them. Don't use any of them any more but did for many years and the only problem is to be careful so as not to scratch them. And they pile up nicely in the photo bag or cabinet compared to round filters.