photographers

The key to landscape photography is control of light. A polarizer will help take glare off the water and other reflective surfaces like leaves. It also gives some contrast to an otherwise flat, hazy day. A side effect (if you consider it a side effect) is the affect on the sky…will make it a darker shade of blue or even black at higher elevations. Neutral density filters will evenly stop a specified amount of light from hitting your sensor. Let’s say you want to get that nice silky effect on a water fall but the day is sunny. If you just shot the image without a ND filter, you might not be able to slow down your shutter speed enough without blowing out the highlights. No problem, ND to the rescue! Grad ND filter is invaluable to the sunrise or sunset shooter. During these “golden hours”, the sky is well light but the foreground (e.g., land or water) is not. The grad ND filter is dark on top and clear on bottom and there is a “gradual” transition from the dark to the clear area. Again, these filters come in different strengths. By placing the grad ND filter in front of your lens you decrease the amount of light reaching the sensor from the bright part of the scene (the sky), thereby allowing nice detail from the foreground to show through without blowing out the highlights. There are 2 types of grad ND filters, hard and soft. Hard has an abrupt transition from dark to clear and the soft has a more gentle transition. The hard would be used if you have a very flat horizon, for example like at the Grand Canyon. For an uneven horizon, the soft transition will do nicely. A word of cautions…don’t get the screw on type of grad ND filters, as they invariably place the transition right at the center of the lens, exactly where you don’t want it. If you’re a beginner, I suggest getting a 3 stop hard and a 2 stop soft grad ND filter. All other filters are optional and I’m sure you’ll experiment with them once you get these down.