My Favourite Landscape Photography Filter

I'm a strong crusader for the creation of solid straight-out-of-camera photographs. In my online landscape photography workshops, Manual Mode for the Landscape Photographer and The Art in Landscape Photography, I teach how the landscape photographer can capture the best images possible in-camera. After all, solid techniques will save you time and a lot of frustration and help you create higher-quality photographs. 

Landscape photography filters, specifically neutral density filters, have both a functional and artistic role within the field practice of the landscape photographer.

The primary function of a neutral density filter is to reduce the amount of light entering the camera. There are several different types of neutral density filters that the landscape photographer might find helpful depending on the types of landscapes most often photographed and the artistic or creative vision of the photographer.  However, there is one neutral density filter that I rely on more than any other filter and is invaluable in my landscape photography. 

Dynamic range is a camera's ability to record details in shadows through highlights in a single frame. There are many landscape scenes in which the camera will be unable to record full scene details due to limitations in dynamic range. This is why sometimes subjects like mountains or trees will appear as extremely dark silhouetted outlines when sky detail is retained or when sky details are white when shadow detail is preserved.

So how can the landscape photographer get around these tricky dynamic range issues?

There are several answers to this question, but the easiest and my favourite way to reduce dynamic range in-field is through the use of a graduated neutral density filter. 

The graduated neutral density filter is a filter in which a portion is darkened, transitioning on a hard or soft line into a non-shaded part of the filter. When the darker portion of the filter is aligned with brighter areas in an image, this reduces or darkens the images' highlights and lowers the dynamic range in a scene. 

^{(Top row displays the graduated neutral density filter)}

In the scene below, I used a soft graduated neutral density filter. The use of this filter reduced the sky highlights, allowing me to capture full details from highlights through shadows in a single frame without the need for more advanced landscape photography techniques. 

^{ISO 100, 23mm, f11, 1/13sec}

If you regularly photograph scenes in which you find you're losing detail in highlights and shadows, you might want to consider adding a neutral density filter to your gear. I never venture out on a landscape photography adventure without mine, as it's my favourite landscape photography filter!