Ray Masters Hands On Review
Some weeks ago I received a couple of filters from a new Slovakian filter brand called Ray Masters. I love trying out new stuff so I was excited to test these ones out. On opening the little plastic bags the filters my first impression was that the filters looked good. They are produced from high quality resin material. I was sent the 100x150mm versions. They also have smaller versions for lesser wide angle filter systems. You can check them out at www.raymasters.eu . The filters I received were all ND Graduated filters.
ND8 Hard Grad (3 stops)
ND8 Soft Grad (3 stops)
ND4 Soft Grad (2 stops)
Right now they also have ND16 grads (soft, hard reversed) and more stops are in production. They also have a high quality glass ND1000. The filters fit nicely in my Haida filter holder that I’m currently using along with my 16-35 Zeiss Tessar with my Sony A7II. I’ve also tested the filters in combination with my Haida ND1000 by stacking them and I didn’t notice any annoying color shifts.
After a couple of weeks of rather intense use without using a decent filter bag for them, they still look totally fine after I cleaned them up. I especially used the ND8 soft grad a lot, and thought I made some scratches on it. They are however easily cleaned with some proper filter cleaning tools and they look just as they were new. The resin material holds up well and is also a bit bendable. I do not think this will break easily (but then again, it’s not glass).
Haida ND1000 + Ray Masters ND8 Soft Grad stacked
The filters I used were samples. I’ve been told all the filters are still in development and especially the higher stop filters (ND2000 is also in development) are still being tested in the labs. I’m very looking forward to this filter brand’s new stuff as this may be a brand that offers good quality filters for a much cheaper price than for example Lee filters. Especially regarding the ND grads, I do not think the quality will differ much. Compared to Hitech these ND grads are basically the same regarding image quality and colour. Again, there are no noticeable color shifts and the colours look natural. Now these are only a few stops of ND grads, so the real quality will show when I will be able to test 8-10 stops or more.
In this mini review I only got to test a few ND Grad filters but so far I’m excited. Decent quality, a good price, and a filter company that is hard at work in getting a full line of decent filters out soon. I hope I can do a follow up on this review later, when I test the full ND filters. These filters are only available in Slovakia at the moment. For people that are interested, I'll let you guys know when you can order them directly from their website.
All images were taken with the Sony A7II with the Zeiss 16-35 F4 Tessar lens.
Feel free to drop me any comment or questions!
Cheers.
Albert Dros
Additional images:
Ray Masters ND8 Soft grad + ND4 Soft grad stacked
Ray Masters ND8 Soft grad
Haida ND1000+ Ray Masters ND8 Soft grad stacked
Haida ND1000 + Ray Masters ND8 Soft Grad stacked