I was recently asked to test and review a new filter system by NiSi. My neutral density (ND) filters are a crucial part of my photography kit and I use LEE’s 100mm wide-angle system for my 5D mark iii, and their compact Seven5 system for my Fuji X-E1. They have served me well, but I was curious about NiSi’s new system as it is clearly aimed at the pro/enthusiast end of the market already occupied by LEE and a few others. Since competition in the market must be good, I readily agreed.
Justin Minns has already documented NiSi’s quality packaging and, rather than reinvent the wheel, I refer you to his excellent review, with which I agree completely. Suffice it to say here that the filter system arrived neatly packaged, with the filters themselves wrapped in tissue paper within smart leather-effect envelopes. First impressions were good.
The initial job on setting up the system was to screw the circular polariser into the 82mm adapter ring. That’s right, the polariser sits inside the adapter ring.
Polariser sits neatly inside adapter ring
With most brands, the polariser is screwed to the front of the filter holder, which sits between it and the lens. This means that when shooting at wide angles, even ultra-slim polarisers vignette, even when there are only two filter slots on the holder, as in the image below.
The NiSi polariser can be used at 16mm without any problem. See below.
There is a caveat here, which is that using a circular polariser at very wide angles is not always a good idea – you can get a patchy look in the sky. But it’s nice to have the choice. The image below was taken at 16mm using NiSi’s circular polariser.
Another very neat feature is that NiSi’s polariser is turned using two dials on the side of the adapter ring. I like this, a lot, and find it far less fiddly than having to turn the filter manually. I would be able to turn NiSi’s polariser easily with my gloves on. Nice.
Dials on adapter ring turn polariser
On the other hand, removing the polariser is fiddly when out in the field and it’s tricky to do without touching the glass itself. To be fair, my existing polariser has been stuck on its LEE adapter ring for a couple of years and I have had to buy a second filter holder for when I don’t want to polarise. So perhaps I am just bad at removing polarisers. In fact, I quickly became used to the Nisi set up and managed to remove the polariser when needed without any difficulty.
Once your polariser is installed, the adapter ring can be screwed directly onto a lens with an 82mm diameter. To use it with other lenses, the kit comes with a set of further adapter rings to step up to 82mm. It is slightly confusing to have to use two adapter rings, but I soon got the hang of it. Next, the filter holder itself clips onto the front of the adapter ring. The holder is made from aluminium and is slim and tough. It feels like a quality product.
The clips at the bottom are a little small and sometimes I needed a few attempts to secure the holder onto the lens. The release knob is at the top of the holder rather than the side and I found this made it a little awkward to use when graduated filters were fitted, but not a major issue.
Small clips at bottom of filter holder.
Clip at top of filter holder.
NiSi sent me three slot in filters: a .9 ND soft grad, a reverse grad and a 10-stop ND. How I got on with these filters will be the subject of the second part of my review. For now, I will just say that I really enjoyed using NiSi’s polariser at wide angles – it’s an ingenious solution to the problem of using polarisers with filter holders, and it works.
