ND Graduate Filters

For the landscape photographer a set of neutral density (ND) graduate filters are one of the most essential items to carry in the camera bag.  An ND grad balances the difference in exposure between the bright sky and the darker ground.  You can do this in post processing by combining two images (one exposed for the sky and one exposed for the ground) but I prefer to get things right in camera.  This also gives me more latitude for dodging and burning in photoshop afterwards.

I recently bought a set of three Lee Neutral Density grads, which are the filters that other professional landscape photographers swear by.  The first time I used these massive 100mm x 150mm filters I was bowled over by the quality of the images they produced.  The set of three filters are designed to darken the sky by 1 stop (0.3), 2 stops (0.6) and 3 stops (0.9) and they can be used in combination to darken the sky further.

The following two images of Belvoir Castle demonstrate the difference an ND grad can make to an image.  The top image is the shot taken with a 0.9 ND filter and the second shot is with the filter removed.

0.9 ND graduate filter used

No filter

As you can see the details in the clouds and sky are enhanced when the filter in used while the exposure was made for the ground.

Lee Filters - ND Grad (Soft)

For me ND Grad filters are essential to my photography and the quality of these Lee filters makes them good value for money.



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