I am about to buy the lee hood with double filter holder and was wondering about differences between resin and polyester filters. Obviously, the resin filters are 4x the price--are they worth it? Are they more scratch resistant? Better optical quality? Any feelings about these filters versus multi-coated B&W or Hoya screw-in filters? Thanks in advance.

-- jason (sanford@temple.edu), April 17, 2002

Answers

I use the poly filters right now and I've used gelatin in the past. They're fine for contact printing 8x10, but I've blamed them for some less-than-perfect 35mm negatives. (Gelatin-filtered small format negatives were never a problem.) The good thing about the polys is that they're cheap. My #8 is all scratched up and I'm not upset about it at all.

As I recall, you shoot 4x5. The polyester filters aren't my long- term solution for anything I have to enlarge...

-- John O'Connell (boywonderiloveyou@hotmail.com), April 17, 2002.

For portraits in the studio I generally use gels over the lights. Wghen I am using a Lee holder, either in teh studio or outdoors, I use either resin or glass. Polyester, while cheap, is too prone to getting damaged and it does have a higher possibility of degrading the image.

-- Ted Harris (slberfuchs@aol.com), April 17, 2002.

I've been using high quality optical resin filter for about ten years; first Sinar and now Lee. Optical quality is excellent, you have to be a bit more careful than with glass filters about scaratching but otherwise i prefer them over polyester or wratten gel filters.

I tbecause to f the filter holder system, I find them more useful than glass filters, especially for graduated density filters.

-- Ellis Vener Photography (ellis@ellisvener.com), April 17, 2002.

Jason,

I like the Lee holder and shade a great deal. My biggest dissapointment with this setup are the "resin" ND grads. I have three HiTech and one Lee (and I've tried others). When used with long lenses they seriously degrade image quality. I consider them unusable for focal lengths of 450mm and up. The only ND grad I have that I can use with these lenses is a glass Tiffen. Optically it's good but the "ND" portion is not neutral... quite warm.

Charlie

-- Charles Krebs (c_krebs@msn.com), April 20, 2002.