A few days ago I received a bayonet adapter ring by “ 3D printed ideas ” for the Lee filter holder system. Héctor Gonzáles the owner of 3D printed ideas asked me to write a review and publish my opinion on the replacement adapter ring. By now I solely used the original 77mm Lee screw on wide angle adapter ring, that fits my 17-40mm lens for example. For any other lens I use step-down rings to attach that adapter to the different diameters of these lenses. The Badpter, which is the product name of Héctor’s bayonet adapter ring, is attached to the lens bayonet that takes usually the lens hood.

There are several advantages over the original Lee adapter ring, the first and most obvious one is that the boring screw on and off is a story of the past, especially at winter when you wear gloves where it was somewhat tricky to screw on and off the adapter rings and sometimes also the step-down rings, as you never know if they are left on the lens or still screwed to the adapter ring. The Badpter will be attached like a lens hood and be fixed with just a small rotation. This is ten times faster than screwing and a convenient way to attach the adapter ring, especially if you would have to use step-down rings with the original Lee adapter ring.

The second advantage over the Lee adapter ring is, if attached to your lens, the lens thread is still accessible and you can use a screw on filter prior attaching a square filter. For example you could use a screw on polarizer and adjust it prior attaching your ND filter to your filter holder. Last but not least that means that you can use your lens cap to protect your lens while the Badpter and Lee filter holder is attached to your lens. If you use the original Lee adapter ring you would have to screw off the adapter and step-down rings first.

Using a screw on polarizer that fit’s to your lens and the Badpter attached you will have to adjust the settings of the polarizer first, prior starting to stick your square filters, for example your graduated neutral density filter, onto the Lee filter holder. The graduated ND filter keeps it’s ability to be adjusted and twisted independently from the polarizer. The original Lee solution on the other hand uses an additional adapter that is attached on top of the filter holder itself, which allows you to attach and use a 105 mm screw on filter at the outer layer of your filter holder. But a 105 mm screw on filter would cost you more than it’s smaller and though cheaper companion like a 77 mm polarizer that would fit on my 17-44mm lens. The benefit of the Lee solution although is, that you can adjust and twist your polarizer while having the square filters attached already. But if you use the BigStopper and have it attached, you won’t see anything when trying to find the proper position of the polarizer as the square filter is too dark to let you see anything, but this would count for both adapter solutions at the end of course.

The only disadvantage that I could find, if you can count it such, is that you would need several Badpter for your different lenses as you can’t use step-down rings or similar. If you won’t use step-down rings on the original Lee adapter ring of course you would also have to buy several Lee adapter rings, and there you go at the end it is no really disadvantage. The most convenient solution compared to each other is the Badpter.

The Badpter comes in four variations. Two different sizes for Canon lenses, one for Tokina lenses and another one for Nikon lenses. There is also a Badpter to each of the mentioned lenses that will fit and hold your Cokin filter holder. To see a full list of supported lenses please visit 3D printed ideas .

Conspicuously is that the Lee Adapter ring is bringing the square filters closer to the lens as it’s predecessor Badpter. On the other hand the diameter of the Badpter is larger than the Lee adapter ring which might overcome the longer distance.

This is the first part of my review, the next one will cover the more practical part of the review and show some photos side by side taken with one or the other adapter ring, letting you know how they perform and if they will produce a vignetting or darken the corners.