ND Filters

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...What ND Filters Can Mean for your Landscape Photos...

The brilliant glow of the sun and the darkness at the water’s edge pose some challenges, but with the use of a tripod and a GND, ND filter, the problems are solved! This is because the GND effectively restricts the amount of light across an image, either by blending it from top to bottom, or radiating from its edges towards the center.

GND filters are available in a number of styles and configurations, but the main differences between the filters lies in how quickly they transition from clear to filtered light allowance – meaning there are soft and hard edge blends that can be used to capture dramatically lit landscapes to good affect. A hard edge is a significantly more abrupt transition, while the soft edge is gradual, hence softer.

Exposure times will have to be lengthened to achieve the proper affects of GND filters, and this is the reason that a tripod is an absolute necessity. Additionally, f-stop settings have an impact on the filter’s affect as well and will need to be taken into consideration. A photographer will have to understand the relation of the image’s various regions to the amount of light passed through the filter as well as f-stop blend. An overall rule of thumb suggests that most landscape images will require no more than a one to three f-stop blend.

Let’s use that sunset as an example – if it is going to be captured in a "portrait" style, the brightest light will be at the top of the image, the portion containing the sky and the sun, from there the light will slowly diminish as it reaches the bottom of the scene, which for this example is the water’s edge. Here there may be only vague light. How does a photographer capture the soft motion of the water without flooding the entire image with the sun’s light? Through a soft edge GND that allows a longer exposure, and yet balances the amount of light throughout the image. The GND will allow the longer the exposure to "soften" and capture the motion of the water in the photograph, yet the filter will also prevent over-lighting from the setting sun.

GND filters are a great way to experiment with landscape photography and scenes that are dramatically or brilliantly lit. While many digital photographers play with editing software that can introduce some of these affects to their landscape pictures, a filter allows a true capture of the scene as the photographer witnessed it.

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