Formatt Hitech filter holders?

[mknittle]

I am considering filter holders in the100mm or 85mm(P- series) Lee is a bit pricey Cokin looks ok but I like the modular design. I was doing a bit of shopping last night and came across these. Does anybody have any experience with them?

https://www.formatt-hitech.com/en/pr...olders~75.html




Thanks mark,

[dje]

I am considering filter holders in the100mm or 85mm(P- series) Lee is a bit pricey Cokin looks ok but I like the modular design. I was doing a bit of shopping last night and came across these. Does anybody have any experience with them?

https://www.formatt-hitech.com/en/pr...olders~75.html




Thanks mark,

Hi Mark

I have a Formatt Hitech 100mm filter holder, adaptors for 72mm and 77mm filter threads and some GND's. My holder is a single holder only, not the latest modular variety. I have been quite satisfied with it and the filters.

I would recommend the 100mm series over the 85mm series as it gives more scope for use on some of the wider angle lenses. If you are going to buy one, I'd suggest you contact the company, tell them what gear you have, and get their advice on whether you get the standard holder or the one for wide angle lenses. It sits closer to the lens face to minimize the chance of vignetting but it also costs more.

Dave

[mknittle]

Thanks Dave, I was looking At hi tech about a year ago but forgot all about them, now I see they merged with Formatt.
You are the second person that gave them a good review. thanks again


Mark,

[dje]

Hi Mark

If you are going to buy one, I'd suggest you contact the company, tell them what gear you have, and get their advice on whether you get the standard holder or the one for wide angle lenses. It sits closer to the lens face to minimize the chance of vignetting but it also costs more.

Dave

Mark just a point of clarification on my previous post - it's the adaptor rather than the filter holder that comes in a wide angle variety and apparently only for the 100mm series.

Dave

[mknittle]

Thanks Dave, that is one of the reasons I like the modular design. it can be shortened to one holder if need be. If I under stand the included parts correctly there are two sets of different screws short and long if not It wouldn't be too hard to get some.


Mark,

[Polar01]

Mark I am going to add a link to a site I use, as a supplier of filters I use, it gives a good comparison of some of the major players with prices so you can judge for yourself what might best fit you. As to ordering and supplying me I have gotten excellent service for them.

http://www.2filter.com/prices/gradua...20holders.html

Hope this maybe of some help

Cheers:

Allan

[Manfred M]

I had a fairly hard look at them when I started out getting the modular filters last year.

I ended up going with Lee, mostly because the price difference between Lee and Formatt Hitech (at the 4" / 100mm size) was not that significantly different. I shoot a lot of lenses with a 77mm filter thread, so this is the only size that made any sense. From a quality standpoint, Cokin seems to have fairly mediocre reviews and Lee gets top marks; I just did not find enough information on Formatt / Hitech for me to risk spending a large amount of money on a smaller player in the business. Had Lee and Formatt / Hitech used the same thickness of resin / glass, I might have taken a chance.

Just as an aside, I picked up a 105mm CPol this summer and found that the Sigma had virtually identical specs for a lot less money. The other reason I went to Lee was that they also make some hoods that are of interest to me for my video work. While I haven't bought one yet, I expect that I will pick one up over the next few months.

I suggest you have a good hard lool at the lenses you expect to be shooting; if you are heading in the 72mm or 77mm filter thread range, you should consider getting the 100mm / 4" size, regardless of make.

[CBImages]

I bought a complete set of HiTech/Format filters about 3 years ago - grads and ND's and was not impressed especially when using the ND's for long exposures. My images would come out with a magenta/brownish cast that was impossible to remove.
As I live fairly close to the Lee factory I gave them a call and received an invite to visit them.
It seems that the brownish cast I was getting was due to infra red light not being filtered out, HiTech filters were initially made for film cameras and film isn't as susceptible to IR light as digital sensors are.

I contacted HiTech and they were not very helpful and despite me sending them some sample images they wouldn't acknowledge any problem. They eventually sent me just 1 replacement filter - I bought 16 originally, 4 hard grads, 4 soft grads, 4 ND's and some colour filters.
This new filter was better than the original one but gave images a yellow cast - this tells me they knew there was something wrong and had changed the manufacturing process.

After seeing 1st hand how Lee make their filters I believe the extra cost is worth paying!

[mknittle]

Thanks Chris, That is a lot of money for nothing! I remember thinking Hitech seemed kind of fly by night when I checked them out earlier. Supposedly when Hitech and Formatt merged they fixed problems from the past. But what you said makes me leery.

[Manfred M]

It seems that the brownish cast I was getting was due to infra red light not being filtered out, HiTech filters were initially made for film cameras and film isn't as susceptible to IR light as digital sensors are.

Chris - this sounds like a highly dubious expalnation to me. While digital sensors so pick up wavelengths outside of normal visual range (both UV and IR ranges), these are normally filtered out by filters placed in front the sensor itself by the camera manufacturers, so the filter should not be introducing these colour casts. I would be more likely to believe that they dyes that they are using (i.e. these are not neutral) or issues with the manufacturing process are the root cause of this issue. Not a comforting thought as it does not reflect well on Hitech / Formatt's production prowess.

I had read about a similar issue with the B+W 10-stop ND filter versus the Lee's Big Stopper. I do own the B+W filter and frankly, I don't see a brown colour cast in the images taken with the filter. This means that this is likely either an exception that someone picked up, something that B+W has corrected.

Perhaps the most likely expanation that the testers simply blew it. Frankly a company like Schneider-Kreznach (which owns B+W) has a lot more talent on the bench than a company as small as Lee or Hitech / Formatt.

Top level technicians and engineers are unlikely employeed by online review sites... They have "real jobs" with employers that pay them the going rates someone who is competent it their field.

[mknittle]

I worked in infrared optics for a short time and coaters and polishers were paid very well and were so valuable the pretty much did as they pleased.

[Manfred M]

I worked in infrared optics for a short time and coaters and polishers were paid very well and were so valuable the pretty much did as they pleased.

Working on IR optics is high tech. If you want to see something really scary, watch this Lee filter video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMu_m203YaY&sns=em

It really shows how low-tech filter production really is. I find this video rather scary; a nice lady with lots of experience hand-dips the resin flats to create the grad filters. The process to create the basic piece of resin is rather low tech,with the resin poured between two pieces of glass held together by paper clamps. I would have expected at least a low degree of automation to ensure repeatability from unit to unit.


And please remember; this is the high end supplier...


I have a degree in mechanical engineering and have spent over 30 years working in manufacturing / production environments, so what I see here really scares me...

[mknittle]

I saw that When I saw the paper clamp part I just stared in disbelief.


Anyway I checked out the Link Allan provided. It looks like Hitech/Formatt is catching up. Lee is still ahead but not by much.
The new Hitech holders work with 4"X4" 1.5 to 4mm thick Glass or resin filters. they apparently wont work for 1mm gel filters but lee will.

[dje]

Just had a look at that Lee filter video - I'm amazed at the lack of "high tech" processes used (if you'll pardon the pun).

[CBImages]

Hi Manfred

Yes it might seem low tech but I have been stood next to these women as they carry out this process and have an alternative view. - They are 'hand made' just like Rolls Royce's and no one complains that they are low tech!

These women have been staining the resin filters for years so they know their job, they apply 'approximately' the right amount of dye then take the filter to the next room, hook it up to a computer that shines a light through it to determine just how much light is passing through. eg - If she is making a 0.9 or 3 stop grad, the light transmission has to be within a certain narrow range, if it fails she goes back to the baths of dye and either adds more or uses a solvent bath to reduce its density and then rechecks it with the computer. Every filter Lee makes goes through this process - as I said 'hand made'!

I would rather buy a filter that has been quality tested at every stage rather than one who makes them in bulk, only tests a sample from a batch and is happy to send out replacements for people who bother to complain that their filter isn't performing correctly.

Yes digital sensors have IR filters in front of the sensors and apparently Canon's IR filters work better than Nikon's for some reason - we'll that is what I was told by the chap at Lee Filters.

[Manfred M]

As someone who has spent most of his career to improve manufacturing and other production processes, I would have to disagree with you. I personally find the video quite frightening and Lee should be worried that someone will step up and produce a higher quality product at a price that they cannot touch.

Quality cannot be inspected into a product, and processes have to be designed in such a way that production errors do not occur. People think that inspection adds quality, but I was involved in auditing a final inspection process and we found that between 15% and 25% of defects were missed. When we redesigned the process to prevent these kinds of errors the defect rate went down, and production quality was running at between 4 sigma (99.38% defect free) to 5 sigma (99.977% defect free).

The other problem with the production method shown in the Lee video is that is highly operator dependent. If the lady dipping the filters is off on holidays or is sick, one of two things will happen. A replacement worker will be put in place and if they are not as good as the regular operator, quality and output will go down. The other option is that production gets stopped while the person is away (generally there will be a move to build up inventory to cover orders during this period; but this can be a problematic process as well).

The third issue is scalability. Because the process is so operator dependent, it is difficult to ramp up production, if the business grows. Training a new operator and getting productivity and quality to acceptable levels requires a major investment in resources. I suspect this is one of the reasons that Lee products are often out of stock.

Fortunately for them, they are a niche market player and nobody has invested the time and money to challange them, The competition is not quite as good (and likely use a similar production process), so have to compete on price alone.

[revi]

Well, the fact that there's a lot non-mechanised doesn't worry me in itself: in laboratories, things like e.g. electrophoresis gels are still often hand-cast, and you do want repeatability there... Mechanising that process isn't viable given the low number of gels needed in a given time (they don't keep). And the recipes are such that they can be used without too much training.

So for Lee it might be the same thing: mechanising everything possible could simply be too costly given the maximum number of units they think they can sell (as you said, niche market). It could also be that they are afraid to modernise....

I understand your reasoning, but for a process to be acceptable, it has to be cost-effective, which means that the market must absorb a certain quantity.

[Manfred M]

Well, the fact that there's a lot non-mechanised doesn't worry me in itself: in laboratories, things like e.g. electrophoresis gels are still often hand-cast, and you do want repeatability there... Mechanising that process isn't viable given the low number of gels needed in a given time (they don't keep). And the recipes are such that they can be used without too much training.

So for Lee it might be the same thing: mechanising everything possible could simply be too costly given the maximum number of units they think they can sell (as you said, niche market). It could also be that they are afraid to modernise....

I understand your reasoning, but for a process to be acceptable, it has to be cost-effective, which means that the market must absorb a certain quantity.

I don't have an issue with manual (hand) processes; these are used all the time. Not everything can (or should) be automated; either because it is too expensive to do so, as per your example of the gels, or not necessary because the process is fairly simple.

I have grad filters from two different manufacturers; Heliopan and Lee. It is unfortunate that Heliopan only makes cirucular screw on filters, as their grads appear to be far more consistent than my Lee products (yes, I do look at them with a magnifying glass). I have no idea as to how Heliopan's production process works, but I like what I see as I look at the consistency of the graduation top to bottom. The level of consistency tells me that they have a very well controlled process; regardless of whether they use automation or do things by hand.

[Polar01]

Manfred: about two years ago I believe, Lee tried to automate the process of the production of their big stopper but found that the failure rate was too high and they could not control the quality of their product so they when back to the old way less waste and higher quality by hand. I could not believe it either but it was true.

Cheers:

Allan

[Manfred M]

Manfred: about two years ago I believe, Lee tried to automate the process of the production of their big stopper but found that the failure rate was too high and they could not control the quality of their product so they when back to the old way less waste and higher quality by hand. I could not believe it either but it was true.

Cheers:

Allan

Alan - it sounds like an interesting case study as to what went wrong. In my experience there are two likely reasons for the automation process to fail:

1. Errors made during the equipment selection process - someone bought the wrong piece of equipment for the job. While this does happen, the equipment supplier is usually on the hook for the problem until it is fixed. If the equipment works to spec and the process does not work, it says more about management competence (or lack thereof) than of the equipment. If the wrong equipment was spec'ed, again, management competence should be questions. All of these issues do come up from time to time; and

2. Change Management Issues - this is by far the most common reason that automation fails. Management imposes a new piece of equipment, the employees either don't like change or feel threatened by it and they do their best to make it fail. Once again, this demonstrates failure at a management level.

Unfortunately, I have seen this happen too many times. People don't like change and will resist it. I've seen this type of failure when change was imposed from the top and nobody below the senior manager who made the decision, bought onto it and everyone worked to ensure that the new technology failed; not by deliberately sabotaging things, but by effectively producing a self-fulfilling prophecy; "we warned you it wouldn't work" is something I have heard far too many times in my career (usually when I am called in to fix somebody else's screw up).