Matte Box Help

M

mw5j1

Active member
Hi Guys,

I am looking at getting a matte box. Can someone explain to me why rotating filters are important or essential? Can you get by with a matte box that does not allow the filters to rotate? What does the rotation of the filters do exactly? And, what matte box and filter set do you recommend?

Thanks in advance.
 
Rotating filter trays aren't essential, but they are very, very nice to have. The rotating trays are primarily used for graduated ND filters (grads). These filters have stronger ND effect at one end and less (or none) at the other. They're used to more selectively affect exposure in a certain area of the scene. If you're shooting a landscape, you might orient the ND with the horizon to knock down the sky a tad. But being able to rotate the tray means you can use the filter at an angle to create more…well…creative possibilities.

In short, rotating trays are really nice, but not absolutely essential, especially in an entry-level matte box.

As to what brand/model to look at, I'd say check out Shoot35 if you're on a budget, or the O'Connor O-Box if you have more funds.
 
Awesome stuff Stephen, really appreciate the information. Regarding the rotaing filters, that is what I was thinking, I just thought perhaps I was missing something.
Cheers.
 
you can pick up really cool older petroff matteboxes pretty regularly on a variety of forums for $500-$600 or so.
 
I'm a fan of Vocas Matte Boxes with their eyebrows (which also has a rotating filter tray). Buy what fits your budget. Sometimes it's best to spend for good quality products, rather than having to re-buy an item that breaks or does not fit your needs. Also, light-weight might be a factor for you.
 
Thanks for the input guys. Yah, I have done a lot of buying cheap at first and then rebuying and upgrading a short time after. Want to avoid that as much as possible.
 
I recently picked up the new Letus LTMB-1 master cinema series matte box and have been very pleased. It wasn't the cheapest but wasn't the most expensive either (was $840 shipped), so I feel like it offered the most value. It does what every other matte box does so I won't rehash the basics, but here's the stuff it did that tipped things in its favor:

- Top flag: included in standard package, many times cheaper boxes like Genus start cheap and when this is added, aren't cheap
- 15mm rail support: out of the box this comes included, again, this is usually a pricey add-on
- Big filters: the 4x5.65 filters are more flexible than 4x4 especially with my 11-16 wide angle
- Triple-stack filters: the primary filter stage will let you stack 3 filters together, with no gaps for weird light refraction to happen
- Rotating Polarizer slot: there's a dedicated 138mm rotating slot for a polarizer or 138+4x5.65 ND Fader combo. Super slick
- Anti-reflection tray: the primary filter tray has a piece of plastic that you can use to angle your filters, you can only use 2 at a time in this config but still worth it
- Study: It's built pretty damn rugged, and while I'm not going to stand on it, it's already been bashed into things and shows no damage

The only things I'm not 100% sure of at this time:
- The main filter tray (the one that'll hold 3) does not rotate, but the polarizer is fine to rotate in it's own, and for ND grads the tray DOES still move up/down so you can position a grad vertically pretty simply.

- The "universal donut" was a $60 rip-off because it's just some fabric, a small mount that screws to the box, and a piece of elastic. Sadly, the fabric is baggy and totally fouls my stubby photo primes' focus rings. My plan is to (tonight actually) go and buy some thin black foam and use the universal donut's mounting plate as a template to cut a low profile foam "donut" that I can mount to the box instead. Should work no problem, but it was a drag to be out $60.

So all in all you get a box that's arguably cheaper than other budget conscious brands like Genus, and one that in theory could easily accommodate 4 filters at once. I foresee easily using the hell out of this box.
 
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