I am looking to purchase the Lee Digital Filter Starter Kit...for those that do landscape photography, would this be a good place to start since I've never really used filters before...any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Sometimes just a normal screw on graduated filter will do but it does force you to just half and half framing.
I used a 24-70mm F2.8 Zeiss on my A850 for that with a Marumi graduated filter.
Using the lee or any filter like it is a long exercise in setting up a tripod, doing a lot of aperture preview, etc. I've been debating with myself if it's worth it.
If you want to take advantage of the 16-35 f2.8 and a filter I would go with a Lee and get the WA 77mm adapter. I have shot that lens with thin cir heliopan filters and others and I always had vignetting at at the wide end. I use the 6x4 and the 4x4 for smaller.
If you get a lee kit and do not like it you can always sell it for close to cost.
First - do a search over on the FM General Gear Forum - more filter related threads than you can count - also the Singh Ray links and blog - great sources of information.
Pass on the Lee Digital Starter Kit - too much stuff (limited useful filters) that you don't need - instead go for the Lee Foundation Kit, though Lee has been chronically back ordered on that item for over a year (or two). You may want to try a WTB on B&S or other means of finding used equipment. I assume your 16-35 is the first version probably a 77mm - your 24-105 at 77mm is a lens that vignettes very easily with filters. To help reduce or eliminate the vignetting use a common 77 to 82mm step-up ring - and a Lee 82mm WA (wide angle) adapter. You can also remove the third tier clip on the Lee holder - you'll never use the third tier anyway. EDIT: The Adorama image is only showing two tiers - they used to have three.
The filters that you will need is directly relate to what scenes you will commonly confront, and what you want to do with the filters. In a quick look at your portfolio (nice work BTW) I see a lot of ocean landscape-ish scenes - I would recommend a #2 reverse GND and as a useful complementing filter for opposite type scenes, a #2 soft GND. You will need or eventually need the same two in a 3 stop. To smooth out the ripples in those water scenes take a look at a #6 or #8 solid ND - Formatt/HiTech Pro-Stop ND - less color cast with the #6 stop. BTW - the Lee filter holder, Singh Rays are a 2mm thick system for 4"x6"/ 4"x4"(100x150/100x100) - be sure to get the Pro-Stops in 2mm. I stopped recommending the Lee Big Stopper - it's a thin glass filter that wants to break.
Another step to useful GND's if using automatic lenses is using the DoF preview to look through the lens stopped down - (I don't have or know how to do that with live view) - when you view the scene stopped down you can see exactly where the GND graduation is in relation to the scene and can adjust it's position - you can't see the graduation line with a full open aperture. Try it a few times and you'll see what that means.
