I recently bought a 100mm Lee filter system for my DSLR. It’s not cheap, but is extremely flexible and offers an excellent upgrade path, allowing you to use the filters with any lens, no matter what diameter the filter ring is. The latest filter in my collection was the Big Stopper; a 10-stop Neutral Density filter for taking long exposures in broad day light.
After taking a bunch of pictures with it, I wasn’t impressed. I was getting a horrible red cast over the image that looked unnatural even after correcting it in Aperture. I called Lee to ask them what could be happening; I had no idea if the filter itself was faulty, or if I was just using it incorrectly.
Lee’s customer service department told me that 90% of issues like this are caused by the photographer using the filter incorrectly, but told me to send it to them anyway so that they could run some tests on it for my piece of mind. As it turned out, the filter was perfectly fine, and it was a clear case of PEBKAC* on my part.
What impressed me most was, even though it was obvious to Lee that I was the major flaw in the filter’s design, they still tested it and sent it back to me at their own cost, just to make me feel better about it!
PEBKAC is an acronym used by IT people, and stands for Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair!
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