Category Archives: Reviews
How to remove the colour cast on the Lee Big Stopper or Hitech Pro Stop filters
I have had a few emails recently from people who have just bought either the Lee Big Stopper or Hitech Pro Stop asking how do I remove a colour cast from using these filters.
So I have decided to write this short tutorial. This will be short because it is quite easy to correct as long as you are shooting in RAW.
You are shooting in RAW, right? These filters give out a blue cast and if you use jpeg mode on these you are just making things difficult for yourself.
There are only really a couple of steps. First of all open the file in Camera RAW. Click on the White Balance Tool (3rd from the left on the top row in Camera RAW) and then select an area of about mid grey. I usually find that clouds work well for this. The example image below used the cloud as a sample point for the white balance. This removed the colour cast and brought most of the colours back into line. If the first point you sample doesn’t give you good results then keep clicking on different points until you get a good result.
This will get you very close to the correct white balance. If not you can use the targeted adjustment tool to change the hue/saturation and lightness of the colours too. In this image, I felt the cliff was a bit too red. I selected the Targeted Adjustment Tool (5th from left in Camera RAW) and then going to the HSL/greyscale pane on the lefthandside. I selected Saturation and then placed the tool over the area I wanted to change. A hold in of the mouse button and a drag to the left/right decreases/increases the saturation. I ended up with -10% red, -24% orange. This is a global adjustment, so if I wanted to just change the cliff area and nothing else then I would have went into photoshop and did the same thing but masking off the areas I didn’t want to change.
This is the image straight out of the camera with the camera’s auto white balance selected.
This is the finished image with the camera RAW adjustments applied and then some sharpening and my usual border/ frame added.
To my reckoning this works for about 90% of my long exposures. Some others need a bit more work with photoshop to remove casts but for the most part this will get you close to a finished image.
Another new toy
I couldn’t help myself…this lens came up at a really good price imported from Hong Kong.
That is the problem when you go browsing on Ebay, you end up buying things you dont really need.
My new Nikon 300mm f4
Wildlife images to hopefully follow in the next few weeks once I purchase a 1.4 teleconvertor to pair with it. It’s amazing how one purchase leads to another. No wonder I end up with cupboards full of camera gear!
Hitech Reverse ND Grad Filters – A first Look
Last week I received another parcel from Formatt-Hitech. This time I have got a set of reverse ND Grads to try out. Hopefully I will have a full review soon.
Initial thoughts are that the filters look well made. The gradations look uniform and level. There seems to be no discernable colour casts too. The only minus point, in my opinion, is the plastic pouches that the filters come in. I much prefer the padded cloth pouches that Lee use and Hitech use for the Pro Stop ND filter.
Hitech Pro Stop review
When Lee released the ‘Big Stopper’ in 2010, they massively underestimated how much of a demand there would be for a decent 10 stop filter. Before the Big Stopper arrived, the only square 10 stop ND filter was the 10 stop filter from Hitech. Unfortunately this filter had a few problems. It was very prone to flare even if you covered all around the filter. It also was sensitive to IR which gave a hard to remove colour cast to foliage and greenery.
Fast forward 12 months and Lee cant make enough Big Stoppers to meet demand. The glass for the filters is sourced overseas, so supplies are patchy with people having to wait quite some time before receiving their filter.
Filter
The people at Formatt-Hitech saw how much of a demand there was for this filter and decided to go ahead and re-develop their 10 stop filter. The first thing they decided to do was to emulate Lee’s idea and install a gasket to the filter. They also designed a new CR39 resin which was much more resistant to IR than the previous one. All components of the 10 stop filter are manufactured and sourced in the UK. The resin is made at their factory in South Wales and as a consequence Formatt aim to turn around most orders in a couple of days.
Hitech went a little further than Lee though. Instead of just designing one filter, they have a whole range of Pro Stop filters from 6 stops to 10 stops. Filters are also available in an 85mm size as well as a 100mm version. The 85mm version will be welcomed by Cokin filter users as an inexpensive entry to long exposure ND filters. To cater for Lee filter users, the 100mm filter comes with a 1.5mm gasket to fit in the Lee holder. The Hitech holder is slightly different and the Pro Stop caters for this with a thicker 3mm gasket.
Packaging
The Pro Stop ND filter comes, for the moment, in a padded cloth pouch very similar to the pouch that Lee filters are supplied in. Over the next couple of weeks the cloth pouch will be changed to a leatherette one with the same padded protection as the cloth pouch but with a different exterior material. The filter also comes with a handy exposure guide as once the filter is on the camera the metering wont work properly so the guide is invaluable to get the exposure correct.
Testing
As with my previous 10 stop filters review, I tested these filters under a few different conditions over the course of a couple of weeks. This time I used two lenses for my tests, a Tokina 11-16mm Ultra wide angle and a Nikon 18-70 lens. For these tests I decided not to cover around the Filter holder as I did on the last review as both the Big Stopper and the Pro Stop have gaskets which completely stop the light leakage from the sides and top of the filters. I also used a Lee 3 stop soft ND Grad for these shots as this is a combination I use a lot.
This first image is straight out of the camera. As you can see the 45 second exposure has produced an image in which both filters are within 1/4-1/2 a stop of each other. Both filters have a blue cast with the Pro Stop being lighter due to the slight difference in densities of the filters.
Hitech pro Stop v's Lee Big Stopper
This second image is a combination of the reference image and the Pro Stop image. The reference image is using the white balance selected by the camera ‘as shot’. The Pro stop image is using a custom white balance taken from the mid-grey clouds just above the hills to the left. As you can see the colours are pretty accurate. The yellows and greens are just about the same as the reference image, with the blues being slightly paler. As this image has had no post processing, it would be very easy to adjust this image to be the same as the reference one.
Reference image v's Pro Stop
The next couple of images were taken a couple of minutes apart. They show how close the two filters can look once a custom white balance has been taken. The white balance was taken from the grey clouds just above the peaks of the Isle of Arran in the distance.
Hitech Pro Stop with custom white balance
Lee Big Stopper with custom white balance
Both images are perfectly fine. If I hadn’t been making notes of the file numbers, I would have found it hard to tell which is which.
Conclusion
As I have mentioned earlier in the review, I spent a couple of weeks and took 60-70 test shots under different conditions. I could post a few more comparison images from my tests but the truth is nearly all shots ended up with the Hitech Pro Stop making images every bit as good as the Lee Big Stopper.
The Hitech does actually beat the Big Stopper on 3 main points…
Price
The Pro Stop is only £72. The Big Stopper can be found from £92-£100
Availability
The Pro Stop is available within a couple of days direct from the factory. Lee back orders for the Big Stopper are currently at least 8-12 weeks.
Durability
The Big Stopper is notoriously fragile. I speak from first hand experience! The Resin Pro Stop filter isn’t as easy to break and if you drop it there is a chance it would survive. Try this with a Big Stopper and it’s a gonner.
It seems at long last there is a credible alternative to the Big Stopper. The filter is available direct from Formatt.
Hitech Pro Stop 10 stop ND Filter – First Look
A quick post regarding a parcel I received today. Those very nice people at Formatt Hitech have sent me the new version of their 10 stop filter. As you can see from the image the filter now has a gasket. The filter also has a different CR39 optical resin dye from the previous 10 stop filter which is claimed to stop the IR colour casts of the previous 10 stop filter.
The filter is available now in both 85mm and 100mm sizes. The 100mm filter retails for £60+vat, the 85mm filter retails for £40+vat. To cater for Lee users that cant get a hold of the ‘Big Stopper’, this filter will be available in a version to fit the Lee holder with a 1.5mm gasket. For Hitech holder users, this filter comes with a 3mm gasket.
As well as being available in 10 stops, Formatt plan to make this filter in 6,7,8 and 9 stop versions.
A full comparison review between this new filter and the ‘Big Stopper’ will follow in the next couple of weeks. The original Hitech 10 stop vs Lee Big Stopper review is here.
UPDATE 29/05/11
Well it took a bit longer than planned but at last the review of the new Hitech Pro Stop filter is finished.