How To Use Graduated Nd Filters

A graduated neutral-density filter balanced the sky exposure with the foreground lupines, but was positioned too low in the scene, making its utilize obvious.

Since so many scenes in nature contain a greater range of light than our cameras (film or digital) can record, graduated neutral-density (ND) filters are a staple in the mural photographer's bag.

Grad ND filters are generally used to darken a background that'south significantly lighter than the foreground. Mutual examples are sunrises and sunsets with bright skies and foregrounds in shade or mount scenes where a snowfall-covered mount is much brighter than the foreground.

But there are no rules maxim you have to use the filter to tone down a background. Occasionally, a foreground is brighter than a groundwork, especially scenes with a sunlit snowy foreground and a background of dark evergreen trees.

Following are 12 tips to help you get the nigh out of your graduated ND filters.

It'due south easy to overdo the polarizer result (bottom). The sky in the partially polarized shot at left looks more than natural (top).

1 Employ the depth-of-field preview to position a graduated ND filter.
Grad ND filters are slap-up for controlling contrast in landscapes. The pull a fast one on is in using them and so that no one can tell you've done this. The first step is in choosing the right filter (one-stop, two-cease, 3-stop; hard- or soft-edged). The secon and possibly more important step is in correctly placing the filter. If the filter is placed besides loftier, the transition volition be seen in the sky, as well low, and the foreground will have an unnatural "shadow" across it.

The best fashion to accurately identify a graduated filter is to press your depth-of-field preview button while looking through the viewfinder, which makes it easier to come across the transition. Moving the filter upwardly and down likewise helps.

Singh-Ray Carve up Grad ND Filters

B+W Grad ND Filter

two Handholding graduated ND filters for speed and accurateness. Along the same lines, I notice it easier and more authentic to handhold graduated ND filters. For ane thing, it's easier to motion and place the filters handheld rather than struggling with a filter holder. Secondly, when the calorie-free is changing fast, I often need to switch filters chop-chop, and using a filter holder just slows me down.

Granted, this takes some practice, as yous need to make sure that the filter completely covers and is likewise flat against the lens. The larger four×half-dozen-inch grad filters available from Lee, Singh-Ray and others tin can brand handholding these filters easier.

I use one hand to press the depth-of-field preview button and another manus to hold the filter. How, then, do I trip the shutter? I put the cable release in my mouth and apply my tongue. No, seriously.

Another advantage of handholding a grad ND filter is that you tin can move it during the exposure. Sometimes you may need to further "feather" the transition. By moving the filter slightly upwards and down during the exposure, you'll take even more command over how the transition area interacts with the scene. This is especially useful when yous need a soft-edged filter, but all you have is a hard-edged filter.

3 Use a polarizer to cut glare from foliage. Polarizers are handy filters to have. They're certainly the most versatile filters. The main apply I find for them is to cut the glare from foliage, assuasive all the colors to come through. I usually use polarizers in the woods on overcast or rainy days to have the sheen off leaves, needles and rocks. This is what makes those wood shots y'all come across so green. Polarizers are essential filters for forest, stream and waterfall photography.

Y'all'll lose a few stops of light, requiring longer shutter speeds, simply that shouldn't be a problem if you lot're shooting from a sturdy tripod.

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The sky over this field of California poppies is a niggling calorie-free in a straight shot (above); adding a polarizing filter makes the sky look meliorate (beneath).

4 Use a polarizer to‚ "come across" through h2o. Interesting things tin can lie but below the surface of lakes and streams. Polarizers can cut the glare from the surface of water and let us to run across colorful rocks and interesting patterns. These brand groovy foregrounds for landscapes, as well as interesting subjects on their ain.

five Save the streams. While polarizers are effective in removing glare from water surfaces, sometimes they're too effective, essentially making streams disappear. If yous take a stream in your photograph, the viewer needs to know it'south at that place. I like to turn the polarizer to its maximum effect and and then back it off just a bit, restoring a footling glare on the surface of the stream. Otherwise, the stream can expect more than like a trail or a route rather than a stream.

6 Use a polarizer instead of a graduated ND filter to darken the heaven. If yous have a blue sky that's just a scrap also calorie-free, say nigh a stop too light, which often happens well-nigh the horizon, y'all tin probably darken information technology with a polarizer rather than using a one-finish graduated ND filter. This way, you get the heaven the way y'all want information technology, along with the added benefit of cutting glare from leafage.

Pelting on the polarizing filter turns this into an ethereal imag

The polarizer will take a greater issue if your camera is pointed 90 degrees to the sunday, in other words, when the sunday is either to your left or right. Exist careful when using a wide-angle lens, though. Because a wide-bending lens takes in a large angle of view across the sky, it's very easy to have one role of the sky appear darker than the rest.

7 Use a polarizer to dial in the heaven. As we've just seen, it's possible to darken skies using a polarizer. Only sometimes it's easy to go overboard, and the issue can be a near blackness sky. This most oftentimes happens at higher altitudes.

Many people plow the polarizer to its maximum effect because that'due south what looks all-time in the viewfinder—that'south what gives the states that "oooh" effect. But remember, film and digital sensors don't see things quite the same way we practise. Compared to our eyes, film and sensors are capable of recording only a very narrow range of brightness values. Therefore, that deep blue sky you see in the viewfinder may look nearly black to your movie or digital camera. The way to know how the sky will be rendered ahead of time is to use your in-camera spot meter in the manual exposure style.

Lee Polarizer

Hither's how: Expect through the view-finder and rotate the polarizer until you similar what you see. Determine an exposure in the manual exposure mode by spot-metering something in the scene (not the sky) that has a medium tonality (the same reflectance as a gray carte). Change your discontinuity and shutter as you lot unremarkably would to set an exposure and zero-out the meter.

Now, betoken your spot meter to the sky and lookout man the analog meter in your viewfinder. Usually, skies await all-time if they're a little lighter than a grey menu. If your meter reads darker than medium (on the minus side of the scale), the heaven volition look unnaturally dark. If it reads -2, the sky will be nearly black. This can be dramatic, but is information technology what you lot want? If non, plow the polarizer until the sky is a little lighter and echo the above metering exercise. Do this until the meter indicates that the sky is the tonality you wish it to be. You may find that y'all didn't demand the polarizer in the showtime identify.

B+W Polarizer

For example, in the first flick of the red rocks, they're of a medium tonality. The light-colored sandstone in the foreground is about one cease lighter than medium. But the sky is about two stops darker than medium. This is what can happen from overpolarizing. By using the spot meter, I can tell alee of fourth dimension if this will happen and take steps to correct it, as shown in the second picture.

8 Do I need a polarizer? If you're not certain you demand to use a polarizer, instead of taking the time to attach it to your lens, simply concord one to your center and rotate it. If y'all see something you like, go alee and adhere the filter to your lens. Some polarizing effects are subtle, like when you want to reduce glare from leaves. In this case, continue your centre on a small-scale section of the scene rather than the whole. Be certain the filter threads are facing you lot, merely as they would be on the lens.

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In a straight shot, the heaven is likewise light (above); a -1 stop graduated neutral-density filter stock-still that (beneath).

nine Using neutral-density and polarizing filters to ho-hum shutter speed.
At that place are interesting and creative things you can practise with long shutter speeds. You can stretch out clouds, record flowers blowing in the wind, create misty shorelines, and mistiness waterfalls and streams to extreme levels. Utilize neutral-density and polarizing filters to achieve these effects.

Polarizers cut about two stops of lite, and neutral-density filters are available in a variety of densities from one to 4 stops (filters upwardly to xx stops are also available).

On brighter days, I've oft used a polarizer with a two-end ND filter to slow the shutter speed sufficiently to blur water. Lately, I've been using Singh-Ray's Vari-ND filter, which allows me to dial in upwardly to eight stops of neutral density. This is a great artistic tool.

10 Fog or mist a filter or lens for ethereal effects.
To add together a touch of mystery to a mural, try fogging or misting whatsoever filter or fifty-fifty the lens itself. After fogging the lens, look through the viewfinder and trip the shutter when the scene looks appropriately foggy. Fogging the lens or filter with your breath is easy to do, but depending on conditions, may not last long; you might need to piece of work quickly. Keep in mind that foggy scenes generally look better overexposed by nearly i stop.

11 Natural filters.
Sometimes you don't need to look any further than the end of your lens for an entire array of filter choices. By shooting through flowers, grasses—just about any foliage—you open the door to a whole store of natural filters. Just use a wide aperture (ƒ/2.8, ƒ/four, ƒ/5.half dozen), and get close plenty so that the foliage is out of focus and produces a soft filtering upshot. To get the exact issue yous're after, be certain to use your depth-of-field preview button to fine-tune your aperture setting.

12 Warming filters. Nigh digital shooters don't use warming filters anymore. Film shooters demand them to counteract the blue light from photographing in the shade on a sunny twenty-four hour period. One reason all photographers should keep a warming filter in their bag is for fill-flash. When you use fill-flash at sunrise or dusk, the absurd, noontime light emitted past the wink is a stark dissimilarity to the warm calorie-free from the lord's day. You can utilize a warming filter, like an 81B or 81C, to cover the flash and match the color from the flash to the ambient light. When covering your wink, try using varying amounts of filtration. In other words, don't just cover the entire flash caput with the filter; try roofing only a quarter or one-half of the flash head. This mode, you lot control the strength of the warming result in the foreground. Digital shooters tin can run across correct away how they've done. Moving picture shooters will want to "subclass" filter coverage until they get a feel for its furnishings. Filter gels are also swell for this. I use a "sunset"—colored gel cut to various widths to remainder fill-flash light with the sunset or sunrise light. [Editor's Notation: Heat from the flash can damage gel filters.]

Then at that place you lot have information technology—a few ways to get the nearly out of your filters and expand your photographic horizons.

Rod Barbee is the author of The Photographer's Guide to Puget Sound and Northwest Washington (Countryman Printing, 2007). To learn more about his workshops and books, visit his website at www.rodbarbee.com.

Originally Published November 1, 2007

How To Use Graduated Nd Filters,

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