Technical Excellence
Keeping control - Everything under one roof
Our manufacturing facility is known worldwide as the source of the world's highest quality lighting filters. The site is home to our Research and Development Laboratory, where expert scientists and technicians have been responsible for much of the improvement in filter technology over recent decades. Our exacting quality control ensures that lighting directors can rely on filters that are colourfast and exhibit consistent performance.
The need for continuous R&D
Long-term improvements in filter design and technology have come about because we have developed a deep understanding of the scientific and technical principles which impact on filter performance. The relationships between light sources and filters are often complex, and need an expert knowledge of both the physics of illumination and of materials science, together with long experience of what actually works practically on a 'shoot'.
Nothing stands still in lighting and filter technology, and our researchers have to ensure that they stay at the cutting-edge of new developments in the materials which are the basis of the filters, and that they understand the key implications of new lighting technologies and techniques that are coming along.
Branching out
Our experience and expertise in film and theatre lighting has enabled us to branch out into designing and making filters for various 'architectural' lighting applications. These include the popular coloured fluorescent sleeves, a clear polycarbonate sleeve with a coloured polyester insert. Available in a wide range of colours, these are used by architects in shopping malls, restaurants, clubs, bars and hotel buildings around the world.
We also make glass filters with a dichroic coating for MR16 and PAR16 lights which are increasingly being used for ambient lighting. Filters for these tiny lamps, which provide a lot of heat as well as light, have traditionally used strong colours, which are often unsuitable for homes and offices. Our research team have come up with a whole range of filters with very pale, subtle colours which remove the harsh pure whites from a room, without giving a strong unwanted colour wash.
Every LEE Filter is carefully designed to fulfil a specific function, and its parameters are precisely adjusted to suit the need of the user. Sophisticated technical measurement and monitoring equipment, including computer-controlled spectrophotometers, are used not only during the manufacturing process, but also to check that every filter leaving the factory meets the precise parameters to which it was designed.
A policy of continuous improvement
Filter manufacturing entails the use of high precision machinery to coat a fast-moving roll of polyester film with a precise accurate thickness of dyestuff. The company has invested in new plant as required, to ensure that it produces nothing less than the best. The complex machinery, much of which has actually been designed by or for LEE Filters, is carefully maintained and operated by skilled technicians, many of whom are proud to have been part of the LEE Filters success story for many years.
Because everything is effectively under one roof, we can ensure that all aspects of design and production are constantly under control, and complete records exist of every filter that we have ever made since the factory opened.