ND Grads Galen Rowell's vs Lee's

Hi all,

 

 

I don't know if this has been asked before but if you don't mind I

would like to know how good is it Galen Rowell's from Singh Ray

compare to Lee on their line of graduated NDs? Price Galen is more

expensive (twice) and are they made from resin also? Anyone has

experienced with these two? I decide to go with Lee system after

long thoughts cause the idea of using several filters with different

lenses.But what concern me is the quality of resin vs glass, I use

Heliopan currently for all my lenses but can not adjust if I do have

to buy more filters for each size of my lenses (bay VI and 95mm

size, exactly they are expensive).So this would help me out lil'bit

financially as I'm not gonna use ND filters all the time.And I

perhaps would like to get the B&W kit also for this Lee system that

I'm gonna get.Thanks for any infos and happy shooting!.

 

Ike

They are both excellent and, more importantly, nobody will be able to tell the difference in a print. You may also want to consider Hitech.

<br><br>

Guy<br>

<a href="http://www.scenicwild.com">Scenic Wild Photography</a>

Resin is better than glass in my book for its not-so-fragile approach to living in my bags. Eitehr way the quality you will see in the sensor or film is the same. I use a Lee system on a rare decade with Hi-Tech filters. The Hi-Tech filters are the same quality as the Lee but much less expensive.

The only real advantage of the Galen Rowell filters is that his

hard-edge filters have a sharper transition than other brands. Other than that, I agree with the others that there is little to no difference

compared to Lee and Hitech.

<a href = "http://terragalleria.com/">Terra Galleria photography</a>

Given that Singh Ray don't or can't claim any meaningful

difference vs the cheaper Lee or Hi-Tech filters I'm surprised

they sell any . Surely there must be something other than a

faster transition to justify the prices they ask?

 

Incidentally the Lee filters have significantly faster transitions

than Hi-Tech. Whilst both brands you mention (and Hi-Tech) are

resin I believe Tiffen have made some v expensive glass ND

grads. Personally I don't see any image quality issues with

clean undamaged resin filters.

My shooting partner just bought a set of filters for the Lee system. In researching this exact same question he called Lee themselves and asked about their filters, telling them he was thinking about buying either the Galen Rowells or the Lees. The Lee employee on the phone told him, (and despite the quotes this is not verbatim) "Well, the Galen Rowells are the best filters out there, so if you want to spend that kind of money go ahead, but our filters are right on their heels for much, much less." Some people just want the best of everything, even if you can't really tell the difference. It's amazing that a competing company would even make such a concession, but Lee obviously knows its market and is comfortable enough with it to say this. Either that or the guy got fired the next day! My friend bought four Galen Rowell filters because he could afford it and never wanted to second guess his decision or have any possible excuse for a loss of image quality. Any mistakes and he knows it was his own fault, not the equipment. I am about to buy something cheaper. Hopefully he'll let me borrow his filters now and then, though!

 

Del

I own grads made by Hitech, Lee, Tiffen, and Singh Ray. I personally like the Tiffen glass filters the best because they do not scratch or otherwise get dinged as easily as the plastic filters made by the other 3 companies. But Tiffen's grads were a bit limited and now are no longer made, or so I was recently told. I really don't think there is much difference between the various companies' grads. Singh Ray's, perhaps, have a very slight edge because they seem closer to actually being the density they are called. Personally, I think you will be very happy with the Lee system and their grads.