Review: Urth Magnetic Filters versus Lee Seven5
Are these new magnetic filter systems any good?
I use my filters a lot. They are an essential item in my camera bag. Since 2013, I have relied on Lee’s small “Seven5” square filter kit. Lee have been at the pinnacle of high quality filter kits for some time. The Seven5 system suits me very well, being relatively small at 75mm rather than the more usual 100mm, matching my small, light camera kit philosophy. My go-to landscape photography gear is just my Leica Q3, my Lee filters, and a tripod. That’s it.
Scarista Beach, Isle of Harris. 200 second exposure time.
For those unfamiliar with lens filters, I use “neutral density” (ND) filters to reduce the amount of light entering the lens, thus slowing the camera’s shutter speed to create very long exposures (say two minutes) to show cloud movement and make rough water still. ND filters are uncoloured (hence “neutral”) and should not introduce any colour cast onto your images. For waterfalls, I’ll use them to show some water movement and flow with a shutter speed of half a second.
A polarising filter will reduce reflections and glare, seeing through the water surface, or making foliage colours richer.
Lee filters are pricey though - my Seven5 “deluxe” kit was about £600 when I bought it twelve years ago, but now I see it selling for a much more reasonable £300 as I think they are discontinuing them. I see the newer Lee 85mm Deluxe Kit is £550 appears to be the successor, and maintains the separate holder/filter setup. No magnetic kits from Lee yet.
Recently though, I’ve been seeing lots of ads and Youtubers using various magnetic filter sets, and I liked the idea of the very quick on/off aspect of them, rather than fiddling with an adapter ring, then a filter holder, then slotting in or clipping on filters.
So I started digging to see what I could find that would fit the 49mm filter thread on my Leica Q3. The Kase magnetic filter set gets a lot of airtime, and their Revolution Pro 49mm filter set costs a reasonable £200. I like their colour coding for each individual filter - great idea and I nearly bought a set.
Then there’s the Nisi JetMag Pro landscape kit at £359 in 82mm size. This looks really good, with the added security that the individual filters lock to each other to prevent accidentally dislodging them. However 82mm is the smallest size and uses step-up adaptor rings, which would end up larger than my Lee 75mm kit. Shame they don’t do a smaller set, as compactness is vital for me, but this would work with larger and wider angle lenses. If you had a number of different sized lenses, you’d pick the kit to fit the largest, and use step-up rings to fit the fit to the others.
After further research I found the Urth Magnetic Essentials Filter Plus kit in 49mm for £76. At well under half the price of the Kase set, could it be any good? Much smaller than the Nisi set, it certainly looked neat online, and comparable in terms of kit contents. So I bought the Urth Plus kit. Note that I bought this with my own money - I don’t have any “skin in the game” with Urth or any other manufacturer. It arrived next-day which was very impressive.
How does the Urth kit compare with the “Rolls Royce” Lee set? I did a road test and comparison for you in the review below.
What’s In The Kits?
The 49mm Urth Magnetic Essentials Plus kit is the six circular ones at the top, the Lee Seven5 Deluxe kit below.
Firstly, the Urth kit is tiny, and packs into itself with a magnetic lens cap (top left) and back cap (top right). The whole setup is extremely compact. It comprises a magnetic 49mm adapter ring that screws onto the camera lens (the Leica Q3 has a 49mm filter thread), a UV filter which I haven’t shown as I’ve already got one on the Q3, a circular polariser, ND8 and ND1000, back cap and lens cap. There’s an included padded round cardboard box for them but I just keep them in a small cloth drawstring bag (ironically a Lee bag).
Lee setup on the left with polariser and ND1000. Urth on the right with polariser, ND8, ND1000 and with front and read end caps fitted.
You’ll note that there aren’t any graduated filters in the Urth kit. This is because, with round filter sets, you can’t slide a graduated filter up and down to match the horizon level in your composition like you can with a square filter system. The argument goes that there’s so much dynamic range on modern camera sensors that graduated filters aren’t needed any more, and when are horizons ever completely straight anyway? I’ll delve into this more, and my usual go-to setup with my Lee kit is a graduated ND 0.6 and a circular polariser.
In the Lee kit, there are 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 ND filters, and I bought an additional 10-stop (same as the ND1000) “big stopper”. There’s a circular polariser, the filter holder, and a 49mm adapter ring. I use a couple of Lee cloth pouches to hold everything, and the Lee filter cloth with separate compartments for three filters is useful.
On The Camera
As you can see above, the Urth filters are obviously far more compact. Give a point to Urth. They are also a lot easier to get on and off. I’ve always found the Lee filters to be a bit of a pain.
Firstly, it is possible to leave the Urth magnetic adapter ring on the lens of my Q3. The Leica lens hood goes on top, so I can just leave it there and forget about it.
The Lee kit requires a large adapter ring to be fitted to the lens, which can’t be covered in a lens hood or cap, and then you need to fit the clip-on filter holder to that. It is fiddly, and the whole ensemble is quite large with unwieldy corners and sticky-out bits that snag in my camera bag. Score another point to Urth.
With the Lee kit, the square filters slide into two available slots in the holder, and the polarising filter sort of clips onto the front of the holder with a twist motion. Firstly, you can only get two square filters into the holder. Secondly, the polariser is not very secure, especially if you rotate (which is the whole point of a circular polariser) it which can pop it off the pegs that are meant to keep it onto the holder. I’ve dropped it several times as a result, and have ended up not rotating it when on the holder at all for this reason - I get it aligned correctly off-camera by eye first. Not a great design,
The Urth kit is the epitome of ease of use. Just bring a filter close to the adapter ring and it sucks itself on like magic. Need another filter on the top of that - just bring it over the first one and it jumps on as well. Great, hugely convenient. Rotating the polariser is simplicity itself. Nice. Another point for Urth.
Additionally, a concern with the Q3 and screw-in filters or holders is whether they stop the lens extending into the lens hood when engaging macro mode. I’m happy to report that the Urth magnetic adapter ring, screwed into a UV filter (for protecting the front lens element), which is then screwed into the lens, does not interfere with macro engagement. You may find this is different on the Q3 43 though, as its lens is longer, so do check.
But the big worry everyone has with magnetic filters is…will they fall off? Is the convenience factor obliterated by them disappearing off a clifftop or into a loch? I don’t have any worries about chucking the camera in my bag with them on, and they feel nicely solid when stuck to each other, and actually can need a good bit of force to separate. However, I am more worried about sideways/sliding forces, which tends to be the downfall of many magnetically attached things.
My conclusion is that I think they can get dislodged with the sort of sideways bash that you’d get with the camera slung around your neck or over your shoulder as the camera swings about while you negotiate a fence or some tricky terrain. I would not be happy leaving them on the camera when I’m moving if the camera wasn’t in my shoulder bag. The Nisi locking filters are probably the answer to this if you’re willing to pay nearly 5x the price. Or you could just order spare Urth filters (or another three complete Urth kits) just in case and still be quids in.
With my Lee filters, I think they are more secure on the camera, but the sticky out corners and filter holder are quite vulnerable to getting caught on something like a jacket as well, so I’ve always put the camera in my bag when on the move anyway. And the polariser fitting is, as previously mentioned, rather insecure. So I’ll give them equal points here.
On Location
Maximum tripod flexibility in a nice gorge. Leica Q3 on duty for filter tests.
I took a little road trip up to a nice gorge with a babbling burn flowing down it, and then over to the coast for some shoreline photography. I chose an extremely sunny day to see how high contrast scenes were handled, and anyway it was warm and sunny so why not be outside? I was using my new Kingjoy tripod and Leofoto geared head again. I’ve been really enjoying this tripod/head combination. A geared head is a wonderful revelation for landscape and nightscape photography, allowing very precise, frustration-free adjustments with no flex at all.
The easiest way to put this is that the Urth magnetic filters are easier and simpler to use than the Lee square filter set. I can pop them in my pocket whereas the Lee set has to go in a bag. They are easier to put on and take off. They are secure enough on the camera to not worry about them when on location, though I put the camera into a bag when moving between locations.
The Lee kit has a problem with sun coming from behind and to the side of the camera. I believe they may have redesigned the filter holder, but the sun can get between gaps in the holder, and also between the square filters, causing reflections within the filter set itself. Years ago I taped some tiny cardboard bits onto the holder to minimise this, but it’s still an issue. No such problem with the Urth set.
I found that the magnetic power of the Urth filters was quite strong, meaning I had to take care when taking them off. I’ll have to develop a sideways sliding technique, but I ended up being very careful not to yank a filter off and have it fly out of my hand. Good that they are secure, but also a little tricky.
The Lee filters aren’t without their insertion/removal issues either, with it being possible to “cross thread” a filter across two filter slots which is a puzzling issue. And the aforementioned polariser fitment is always a concern.
Image Quality
My testing approach was to shoot the same scene with each filter set, with an ND1000 and polariser then just a polariser. I used the same aperture, ISO, and shutter speed for each scene, shot DNG (RAW) and set the white balance to be sunny for the coastal shots and shade for the gorge shots. Consistency is important for comparative tests like this. Images were then imported into Lightroom where I put them side by side using the comparison function. No editing was done in Lightroom so these are “straight out of the camera”.
There’s no dicernable difference in sharpness between the different filter sets, so no need to zoom in 100%. Instead, it’s the exposure, light, shade, reflections/glare and colour that we’re looking at.
Polariser + ND1000. Left is Urth, right is Lee.
Above, you can see very different colour casts. The Urth (left) is true to the scene. The Lee (right) is way out, very blue/green. Both images have the same “shade” white balance set manually. That’s the ND1000 filter in action. When I bought the Lee set in 2013, it was top class compared to other offerings on the market. That’s why I and others paid big money for them. It looks like the competition has caught up and overtaken. I imagine the latest Lee “Big Stopper” must be better than this old one. Removing a colour cast like this is really tricky - it can be done and I have a preset that tweaks the white balance and tint a bit, but it is rather annoying.
The Urth image is also slightly higher exposed compared to the Lee. The Urth polariser isn’t quite as strong as you see in the next comparison shot, which accounts for it, although I imagine the ND1000’s could be slightly different as well.
Polariser only. Urth on the left, Lee on the right.
Down to the sea, and a shot with just the polarisers on. Conditions were incredibly bright, with strong shadows, which is great for this sort of test but a bit rubbish for portfolio images.
The polarisation effect of the Urth (left) is weaker than the Lee (right). You can see this in the visibility of the stones under the water on the left side. Both polarisers had been rotated for maximum effect. I’ve always really liked the Lee polariser’s results. It puts a lot of “punch” into images. I’d say the Urth is just OK, and the Lee bests it noticeably.
Polariser + ND1000. Urth on the left, Lee on the right.
Moving close to a nice rocky outcrop with little wavelets breaking causing a little patch of foam, here’s another shot with the polarisers and ND1000s fitted. Shutter speed is 30 seconds now, and the aperture is f/14. ISO is 100 and white balance is “sunny”. Again you can see the big colour cast on the Lee (right), confirming the result from the gorge wasn’t a one-off. A black and white conversion would be fine, but if you want a colour shot then there’s a fair bit of post processing to do.
Once again the Urth setup is more accurate to the actual scene, and slightly brighter.
It is worth noting that neither of the kits blocks any part of the lens, so there’s no “vignetting”. This is an important consideration, especially when using much wider angle lenses than this 28mm on the Leica Q3. When lens-barrel diameter filters are used like the Urth, you do need to be careful that a stack of filters doesn’t impact the visible scene. The more filters you stack, the taller the stack and the more likely it is to intrude on the image. For this reason, kits like the Lee with larger filters, offer more room to manoeuvre with wide angle lenses. It would be prudent to check carefully if you’re getting a kit like the Urth when using a 16mm lens for example.
Points Mean Prizes
It wouldn’t be a review without some road-test points comparisons:
Price: Urth win
Size & Portability: Urth win
Fitting Convenience: Urth win
Fitting Confidence: Evens
Polariser: Lee win
ND1000 filter: Urth win
Vignetting: Evens
Colour Cast: Urth win
Image Quality: Urth win
Urth for the win then.
Conclusion
I’m very happy with this Urth filter set. It ticks all my boxes for being very compact and portable, sensibly priced, well made, convenient, and high quality. I’m particularly happy that I can leave the magnetic adapter on the lens. I’ll keep using the Q3’s metal lens hood though, which screws on top, if only as some extra protection when clambering about rocky coastlines.
I think I can live without graduated filters. People are right when they say that the dynamic range of modern digital cameras is so good they aren’t really needed any more. It just means a bit more care ensuring the white clouds in the sky don’t get blown out. I’m always amazed how much detail is in the shadow areas of DNG images from the Leica Q3 - its sensor really is quite exceptional except at the highest ISOs (compared to a Sony A7IV for example).
I now look forward to many more outings with just a less weight, a bit better convenience, and much better image quality. I wonder if these will last me twelve years or more.
Here’s a gallery of recent images of the Isle of Skye and Isle of Harris made using the Urth filters on my Leica Q3. Click for larger.
