Big Stopper + Little Stopper

Valvebounce

CR Pro
Apr 3, 2013
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Isle of Wight
Hi CanonFanBoy.
I had quite a long chat with the Lee rep at the equipment show the other day.
We discussed the shortage and he said they are working on that, then we moved on to using the filters and stacking etc, I think he said that he wouldn't recommend stacking as there was a possibility of light leak as the first filter would seal against the holder but the second filter's foam would not seal against the first due to the gap created by the structure of the holder. He also said that the colour cast from stacking might be more difficult to remove.
This is from my memory at the end of a long day at the show and may not be 100% reliable, so I suggest a call or message to Lee themselves, if they are all like the Rep I spoke to you will get the answers you need. Of course you may well get them here too. :)
I do remember him saying that he has access to a full bag of filters and that he uses the big stopper a lot less than the little stopper these days.

Cheers, Graham.
 
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candyman

R6, R8, M6 II, M5
Sep 27, 2011
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CanonFanBoy
I use the LEE filter system (100) for landscape photography.
I have stacked big & little stopper as wel as stacking with 0.3 and 0.9 ND filters.
I had no light leak. The big and little stopper come with a rubber border that thightens the filter in the system. The reason for that rubber border is to exclude light coming in - as you probably know. The 0.3, 0.9 and 0.6 do not have these rubber border. Neither do the soft and hard grads (I do own them as well)
Stacking the big and little stopper does give you 16 stops. The vignetting with a wide angle lens is very big, I noticed with the 16-35 f/4 IS
But even if you would experience a light leak, you can solve that by covering the top of the lens and the top and side of the filtersystem. If you have only a few minutes to take that shot in a location you are just once, you may take out any risk of missing that specific shot.
As I said, I don't have that experience and really like working with the LEE filter system.
 
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Ozarker

Love, joy, and peace to all of good will.
CR Pro
Jan 28, 2015
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4,337
The Ozarks
LDS said:
Lee now makes the Super Stopper which is 15 stops, if you need such kind of density in a single filter. As said, leaks while stacking may be tackled by covering the filters with a black, lightproof cloth or the like.
But it would interesting to experiment which filter mount before the other to obtain the best result.

I was completely unaware of the Super Stopper. Thanks!

I'd be looking at the 150mm versions to fit my Tamron 15-30mm.

Thanks for your input guys. :)
 
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