Lee Big Stopper at Lake Bemidji State Park
Copyright 2014, Bill Caddy – Caddy Imaging
Shot taken with a Nikon D7000 set on manual using a Tokina 12-24mm AT-X 124 AF PRO DX lens. The exposure was taken at 12mm, f/8 for 25 seconds at ISO 100 with a Lee Big Stopper filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 5.6, Google Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0.

Last Friday I received my Lee Big Stopper 10 stop nd filter from Adorama. My youngest had been asking me all day to go to the lake to go swimming, so I decided it was time to give in. Here was a chance to play around with my new gear. I hadn’t been sure if the filter was going to fit since I use the Cokin Z Pro filter holder and I wasn’t looking forward to holding the filter against the lens for an extended period of time. I had checked that the filter would fit the thickness but I had also noticed that the pins on the holder didn’t allow the filter to move down far enough to make a good seal shut out all the light. We arrived at Lake Bemidji State Park at about 7pm on a bright, mostly sunny day. As my youngest ran to the beach to go swim and my oldest left to go for a walk, I grabbed my camera, tripod, filter holder and a remote, wireless shutter that I had also just purchased, an Aputure Pro Coworkder Wireless Remote, and headed down to the beach.

After about an hour of playing around with settings, and a couple of different set ups testing long exposures on the water, we headed back home. The boys had fun, I had fun, and now I want to get back out and shoot some more long exposures.

My first impression… I love this filter. Second impression… it didn’t work very well with the Cokin filter holder. So my options were to either figure out a way to make the filter sit in the holder better, or go with the Lee filter holder. The filter, as of the time of this writing, was $140. Purchasing the Lee holder and the lens adapters would run me another $250 or so. A little steep for this stage. So after looking around on the internet, I modified my Cokin holder by turning the pins around in their slots, then filing off the remaining edges that were still sticking out. Now I really do have to get back out and shoot some more!

Lee Big Stopper at Lake Bemidji State Park
Copyright 2014, Bill Caddy – Caddy Imaging
Shot taken with a Nikon D7000 set on manual using a Tokina 12-24mm AT-X 124 AF PRO DX lens. The exposure was taken at 14mm, f/14 for 25 seconds at ISO 100 with a Lee Big Stopper filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 5.6, Google Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0.

Lee Big Stopper at Lake Bemidji State Park
Copyright 2014, Bill Caddy – Caddy Imaging
Shot taken with a Nikon D7000 set on manual using a Tokina 12-24mm AT-X 124 AF PRO DX lens. The exposure was taken at 13mm, f/8 for 30 seconds at ISO 100 with a Lee Big Stopper filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 5.6, Google Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0.

Lee Big Stopper at Lake Bemidji State Park
Copyright 2014, Bill Caddy – Caddy Imaging
Shot taken with a Nikon D7000 set on manual using a Tokina 12-24mm AT-X 124 AF PRO DX lens. The exposure was taken at 24mm, f/14 for 30 seconds at ISO 100 with a Lee Big Stopper filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 5.6, Google Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0.