A neutral density (ND) graduated filter should be nestling somewhere in your kit bag if you’re a keen landscaper. When you are photographing the countryside, more often than not you’ll be faced with extremes of exposure that the dynamic range of your camera’s sensor or film just can’t cope with. It doesn’t matter how you try to balance the exposure, you just can’t capture what’s in front of you as you see it. But by using an ND grad, you can.

Grads come in different strengths to enable you to cope with different extremes of exposure. They are also available in both circular and slot-in formats – although the slot-in is more popular because they are much more adaptable, allowing you to vary the point at which the transition between the clear and grey (neutral) areas is placed within the frame.

You’ll also find a choice between soft and hard-edged ND grads and the difference is pretty much as it sounds. With a soft-edged grad the transition between the clear and grey areas is over a longer part of the filter, while a hard-edged grad has a more abrupt transition. Both have their uses although, interestingly, a 2-stop hard ND grad is the most popular type currently sold by Lee Filters.

Tilting grads

While most photographers think of an ND grad as a tool to hold back the exposure in the sky so the grey part is in the top half and the clear zone is in the bottom half, that’s not the way it has to be. You can position the grad so the grey area is holding back a brighter foreground – perhaps a snow-covered field or a large expanse of bright water.

Using two grads, one for the sky and one in the ‘upside down’ position, can work very well and that’s exactly what’s been done here. One image has been taken without the filter and one with a grad tilted to control the exposure between the light and dark areas that run diagonally through the scene.

You could, of course, even use them in a side-on position if the scene in front of you is heavily shaded on one side and sunlit on the other. In fact, you can use an ND grad at any angle that’s appropriate. You might even want to angle the filter at 45 degrees so that the transition zone falls across an especially bright corner of the frame.

Again, this is useful if the sun is visible or just out of the frame on one side.

However, if you do tilt the filter you may find your image suffers from vignetting. This is where edges of the filter/filter holder are actually visible at the edge of the frame so you need to be aware of this when you tilt your filter holder.

Different Strength Grads

The most easily available and useful densities are those that reduce the brightness by 1, 2, or 3 stops. For example, Cokin very sensibly labels its ND grads as ND1, ND2, or ND3, while Lee Filters refers to the same 3-stop series as 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9. With some systems you can also get ND grad filters that reduce the light by 11/2stops (0.45) and 21/2 stops (0.75).

These three photos have used a different stength of grad to help the exposure. The mountain image only needs a 0.3 grad as there is little difference between sky and land. The shadow across the foreground of our waterfalls needs a 0.6 grad to balance exposure; while the dark foreground and bright dawn sky needs a 0.9 grad to cope with the exposure difference in the last image.