Prior to my vacation to Scotland I bought a filter holder to be more precise the Cokin Z-Pro. Along with it several Cokin ND filters and a 10 stop ND grey filter from Hitech. My decision to buy the Cokin Z-Pro and the Hitech 10 stop filter was driven by the price and the fact, that all the Lee stuff was out of stock and delivery times were several weeks long, time I did not had. I am very disappointed about the Hitech filter because of its reddish color cast. Therefore I decided to buy the Big Stopper from Lee filters along with the Lee filter holder. Now having both filter holder side by side, I understand why you should not make use of the Lee Big Stopper in a Cokin filter holder.

Cokin Z-Pro vs. Lee Filter holder

If I had not been disappointed by the Hitech filter, the Cokin Z-Pro would have been the perfect companion for me. The Z-Pro can hold up to three filters and reverse attached it is compatible with a wide angle lens.

The Lee filter holder is in need of a special adaptor ring, which is a bit more expensive than the regular adaptor ring, to be used on a wide angle lens, but the wide angle adopter ring will fit on any other lens as well.

So what is the difference between the Lee Big Stopper and the Hitech? The Lee Big-Stopper has a rubber gasket on the back side to prevent scattered light hitting the lens that might fall in between the lens and the filter itself. Let’s have a look at the holders. The photos are showing the filter holders from top, just as like as you would slide in a filter into the slots.

As you can see the Z-Pro has three pins to hold the adaptor ring. The adaptor ring itself is pushed into one filter slot and can be used reverse side to be used on a wide angle lens. The pins can be pushed in both ways to make space for the adaptor ring and hold it on both sides. Due to the pin mechanism, a 100 x 100 mm filter cannot be used at the first slide-in-slot (when using the filter holder like in the picture above which is the standard mount), as the filter would be stopped by the two pins you can see at the bottom. As a result the filter is not covering the entire lens. Using the filter holder reverse side, you just have one slide-in-slot but a 100 x 100 mm filter will fit very well and will also cover the lens entirely. For the slim Hitech filter the slot is a bit too loose and the filter is shaking in it and can fall off. Any thicker filter will not have the problem. So to use a 100 x 100 mm filter you have to use any other slot when the filter holder is mounted in the standard way. Same counts for the taller graduated filter types like 100 x 150 mm filters as they won’t have enough room to slide into all positions (using the first slot). At the reverse side, the Z-Pro has not a plain surface and on both sides the pins are always sticking a bit out so the rubber gasket of the Lee Big Stopper would be damaged whilst sliding in the filter. So most of the filters (except the Big Stopper by Lee) work just fine with the Z-Pro as long as you don’t use the first slot.

As you can see, the Lee filter holder has a plain surface. There is nothing to damage the Big Stopper’s rubber gasket and even a taller graduated filter can slide into all positions even at the first slot. The adaptor ring has its own fitting mechanism and clips into the filter holder. Via the golden knob left hand side at the photo, the Lee filter holder can easily and very fast attached and removed from the adaptor ring and lens. So making your settings and metering is possible without sliding out each filter. You just detach the entire filter holder, make your camera adjustments and clip the filter holder back to the adaptor ring and lens.
For the Z-Pro it is also easy, but less comfortable, you just need to push the pin(s) out of the way and you are ready to slide out the entire filter holder.

Both filter holders have optional accessories (sold separately) to extend the number of filter slots or to attach a lens hood. The Lee filter holder has beyond that, another nice option, it is an adaptor ring to be able to use any 105 mm screw in filter, like a polarizer. The benefit is, you can adjusted that screw in filter separately, so all other filters stay the way you have set them up at the filter holder.

So my favorite is of course the Lee filter holder as it is more flexible, versatile and allows the usage of the Lee Big Stopper with the rubber gasket.

The Lee filters and its equipment is shipped along with pouches to protect the equipment, Cokin is sending out their filters with just a micro fibre cloth pouch. The Hitech filter came with just a paper and a plastic pouch. Along with the Lee equipment you get a small user manual. For the Big Stopper Lee is also including a quick reference card to be able to calculate exposure times. At the end Lee is showing how professional accessories should be handled and treated. Even if you have to pay more for Lee equipment it is worth to spend the extra penny.

The availability of Lee equipment in Germany is not the best and you have to wait up to several weeks. So I decided to look beyond the borders and found out that in the UK the desired equipment was available, even the stores listed them as out of stock. I contacted the shop owner prior placing my order to verify the availability and delivery times. The price including shipment to Germany for a Lee Foundation Kit, a 77mm wide angle adaptor ring and the Lee Big Stopper was about 90 EUR cheaper than buying the same items here in Germany. The dealer I found having all in stock was Teamwork in London.

Conclusion: For those who are sure they will never use a Lee Big Stopper and feeling ok to just have 2 fully usable filter slots can buy the cheaper Cokin filter holder. If you are going to use 100 x 100 mm filters you have to look for the Cokin Z-Pro series. If you are going to plan to use the Big Stopper you have to pay a bit more and look for the Lee filter holder but you will be rewarded by the above mentioned benefits.

Nearly any 100 mm filters can be used with both filter holder systems (see the exceptions above). I bought a range of Cokin filters, ND’s and graduated ND’s which I now can easily reuse with the Lee filter holder. And there are a lot of more filter manufacturer on the road like Hitech. By the way also the Big Stopper is producing a color cast but it is a bluish one which can be easily corrected with a manual white balance if you shoot in any other format than RAW. Set your white balance to manual and as low as your camera allows you to set it, commonly this is something about 10,000 Kelvin. If you shoot B&W you will not care about the cast anyway. And if you shoot RAW you are able to correct the cast with your photo finishing software or at your RAW converter.