As a landscape photographer, I consider my filters as some of the most important pieces of kit in my bag. I would probably say that 90% of my photography involves a filter of some sort, in front of the lens. It always staggers me when photographers spend 1000’s of pounds on a lens and then degrade almost every shot they take by putting cheap filters in front of it.
I will also say that there has been no financial incentive or “free gear” to try out, all the equipment has been paid for by me. I don’t have any axe to grind with any filter manufacturer and have been keen over the years, not to get involved in the social media “brand bitching” which sadly seems to have taken hold of the photography community in recent years. My filter bag has a bit of everybody’s filters in,
Let me indulge in a little history in a way to explain how my preferences and likes and dislikes for filter system features developed over time.
Originally, I experimented with cheaper end filter systems, not realizing the impact it could have on the images I was taking. However, once you shoot alongside other people and see their results compared to yours with similar cameras, it becomes a “no brainer”, you realize you have to bite the bullet and pay the money for the best filters you can afford.
Around 2015, the go to filter system was unquestionably “Lee”, it seemed like everybody had a “Little Stopper” and “Big Stopper” and the Lee grads in their bag. To be fair to Lee Filters I have never checked out what they offer nowadays so they may have equivalent product now.
Around 2017 it seemed that the likes of Nisi had just moved things up another level. The glass grads seemed far superior with the wipe clean coatings and it felt like a general quality upgrade. After initially resisting the temptation, I crumbled after getting sick of comparing the results from other photographers I was shooting with and who had similar camera’s to mine.
I have since moved again to the Kase system, not because any upgrade in quality, more because some of the features they included. The magnetic mount polarizer, the extended length on the 6 & 10 stop, and the scratch resistance coating and toughened glass, all suited my photography better.
This brings us to the present day and although I am still very happy with my filters, general wear and tear means that I need to replace a couple. Having looked into the costs and with prices of £140 being quoted for one filter, I was thinking I would just soldier on before being introduced to the K&F Concept brand.
If I thought for one minute, any piece of equipment I used could compromise the images I took then I just would not bother using it. In photography the saying of “Buy cheap, Buy
Twice” is generally true so it would be a breath of fresh air for a new brand to come to the market offering quality product for a more realistic price.
K&F Website
I will start with K&F Concept website as the link below, which is via Ray McBride’s website.
https://www.kentfaith.co.uk/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=all&utm_campaign=Raymond%20Mcbride
There is quite an array of product from Back packs, tripods and the filters as well as a few other products. I will definitely have a look at the tripods at some point but Ray tells me there is some more product coming out early this year so I will wait for that to arrive. The camera bags are also worth looking at.
The information is presented well enough, If I was to suggest anything it would be to have a filter option to view only the non-circular grads only, as you have to keep paging through to find all the options.
There does not seem to be as many options for the grad filters as other brands such as soft, medium, hard and different ND’s. Having said that I’m not how much the less popular combinations are used anyway.
Delivery
No complaints really when you consider I placed my order on Thursday after a COVID stretched Christmas and received it on the Thursday after.
First Impressions
When it comes to first impressions of the K&F filters then the packaging can only be described as extremely impressive, which is surprising when there is a considerable difference in price, when compared to other brands.
The pull tab to take the filter out of the holder is genius, but it is a shame I probably won’t use it as I like to have all my filters in one filter bag to give instant access. If I keep them in the holders then they won’t fit in my filter bag.
Field Test – Pre Sunset at Spike Island Widnes 10/01/21
- 100mm x 100mm 6 Stop ND
- 3 Stop Soft Graduated ND
- 3 Stop Reverse Graduated ND
The Covid 19 Lockdown rules in place at the time of taking these shots restricted the locations I could visit to local only and I only really had time for a couple shots where I wanted to use filters. I think further road testing will support these one shoot findings.
The two Raw files directly exported form Lightroom are shown on the next page, one taken using the Kase 6 stop ND and Medium Grad and the other with the K&F Concept 6 stop ND Soft Grad.
There is a quite a noticeable difference in the colour cast which could be considered a downside but that presumes the Kase filter is closer to natural light in the first place. Take your pick really which ever you prefer, I don’t have a Nisi grad to compare them both to. Next time I will take a shot without any filter at all which will give me a better reference to the natural colour tones.
Will that colour cast be a problem to me, probably not, the Lee filters were always known for a slight cast which you just learn to adjust for and until last year, I was using a Canon 5D Mk II which also gave a slightly purple tone which again you adjusted out.
This was kind of a hybrid review because I was still using my Kase filter holder for all the shots. The reason boing I could not do without one of my favourite features of the Kase filter system, the magnetic mount circular polarizer. I find this so much easier than the fiddly screw threads on the Nisi and Lee systems I have used before. Coincidentally at the time of writing this review K&F Concept have launched a magnetic CPL of their own so I will definitely have to have a look at that.
You can notice a vignette from the Kase holder which is surprising for a focal length of 28mm so I will be interested in trailing the K&F Concept holder and see if that holder is better.
Another Kase system feature that I really like is the 150mm high ND filters. I found swapping back to the 100mm square K&F Concept ND filter a little awkward. When I wanted to take off the ND 100mm square filter, I ended up having to take the grad off first to remove the 6 stop ND. The other advantage of the 150mm height is that it reduces the risk of light leakage although I can’t say I ever noticed this myself when using the square ND’s from Nisi or Lee.
I never got the opportunity to try the Reverse grad on the first shoot but did use the soft 3 stop and the best compliment I can give is that there was no noticeable difference between that and the Kase 3 stop grad. In fact, I used it in preference to the Kase filters I had. In fairness the softer graduation suited the scene better and my soft grad Kase has a mark on it.
Straight out of the camera raw files
Kase Medium Graduated Filter
K&F Concept Soft Graduated Filter
Final Edited files
Exif for both – ISO 100, F11, 15 seconds, 28mm focal length
Here are the edited versions of the two files. I did initially try to match the tones in lightroom before I did the K&F Edit to try and keep the images the same but in the end that seemed a bit pointless so it became more of a case of could I produce an image edit I was happy with using the K&F. The answer to this question is definitely yes, in fact I prefer the K&F version. There may be an element of the fact that I had practised on the Kase version, so I improved the second time around. I must admit my editing skills probably lag behind my field capturing skills so it’s a little bit of a false trial. The Kase shot also had the added bonus of the Heron posing on the sand bank
Kase 6 Stop ND filter and 0.9 Medium Graduated filter
K&F Concept – 6 Stop ND filter and 0.9 Soft Graduated filter
Trial of K&F 0.9 Soft Graduated filter
I was intending to continue the comparison of the Kase and the K&F graduated filter but it got a bit complicated for this shot. I only had one option day to go out so you have to take whatever tide height there is at sunset. The composition options when the sun sets in this direction are a bit limited so this shot becomes a bit of a challenge. Getting low to reduce the impact from the mud flats and include the mossy rocks meant that I needed to focus stack to make sure the green detail was sharp and then the contrast of the bridge arches and the bright sky meant I needed to bracket the shots.
The final result is perhaps not the greatest edit as there is some banding round the bridge arches but the objective was to trial the filters and the fact that I just forgot about what filter I had on was proof enough that these filters are certainly on a par with what I had before.
There will be more opportunities and better compositions to do a proper comparison, on this occasion my head was lost in the challenge, which is fine because that is what photography is all about. You can recognise the deficiencies and next time do a better job.
