Filters for extremely wide angle lenses

With a lot of lenses that are available now that are extremely wide such as the Canon 11-24 or Nikon 14-24, what photographers are finding is that your usual 100mm filters no longer fit or cover the vast area in front of the lens anymore.

Some photographers choose to avoid purchasing such lenses due to this or use the lenses when filters are not required or bracket exposures and blend them together.

Having come across the same problem, I was pleasantly surprised to find recently that you can get much wider filters specifically for such lenses. How long they have been available, I have no idea so this may not be a surprise to other photographers but you can purchase 150mm wide filters, which with the correct holder and adapters allow you to have use of filters once again on these lenses. It is not that simple though!

As you can imagine, the filter being wider, requires a completely different holder and adapter ring to use them so you will need a filter holder, adapter ring for the lens in questions and of course the filters themselves.

Costs

Specifically talking about the Lee system (SW150), the adapter rings are around £65 (compared to the 100mm versions) although for some lenses you may need to get an adapter only available from the lens manufacturer and the filters are around £95-£140/each depending on what you are after. Lee's filter holder is around £140 for the Mark II version which includes a lightshield handy for preventing light leak when using filters as the Little or Big Stopper.After having purchased my filters, adapters and holders I then found myself carrying around two sets of filters for my lenses - a range of 150mm ones and similar ones in the 100mm size, which isn't ideal with the amount the kit some of us already carry around.

Sharing the 150mm filters with other lenses

I tried to see if there was an adapter that would allow you to connect the 150mm filter holder to lenses that would typically take the 100mm filters but it didn't seem possible and I also purchased a NISI Digital filter holder for one of my lenses as it seemed a better fit for that particular lens. Trouble was neither seemed to allow you to connect to other lenses so as not to require two sets of filters.Fast forward a short time later and I popped to the Lee stand at the UK Photo Show recently to see if this was something that they could address and to my surprise they had just launched the adapters to allow the very same thing!Having purchased the adapters - they work perfectly meaning you can now just have one set of filters to use against your wider lenses as well as your normal lenses so no need to carry multiple sets of filters on location anymore.

Which adapter/holder do I need for my camera/lens?

Lee now also have a nice feature on their website to outline the correct adapters/holders for a variety of camera systems and lenses - Lee Camera System Match

Disclosure

I am not sponsored by Lee or Nisi nor have been asked by anyone to write this post and the products mentioned above are ones I have purchased myself after requiring larger filters for some of my lenses. None of the links above are affiliate links.

Lee & NISI Filters 150mm