Tag: graduated neutral density filter

Photographic Gear – Filters

Here are the filters you should have in your camera bag.

This is the fourth in a series of articles that tour the contents of my camera bag. If you missed any of the previous three articles you can catch up with these links:

Photographic Gear – A Tour of a Photographer’s Camera Bag

Photographic Gear – the Camera Body

Photographic Gear – Lenses

In this article I want to discuss filters with you.

An Overview of Filters

Filters are a clear medium that is placed in front of the camera lens. The medium can be glass or, in some cases, a high-quality resin. The purpose of the filter is to enhance the image. Filters are one way in which photographers “get it in the camera,” a point of view that it’s better to get something close to the image you want in the camera so that it doesn’t require so much effort in the darkroom, digital or analog. Continue reading “Photographic Gear – Filters”

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Making a Photograph – The Four Pillars

Explore the four things that make a great landscape photograph – Fantastic Light, Strong Composition, Appropriate Sharpness and Optimum Exposure.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to what goes in to making a great landscape photograph. It turns out there are four things, four pillars if you will.  Four, that’s a good number.  There are the four legs of a table or the four wheels of a car.  And not to forget the four sacred directions of the Native Americans.

In landscape photography the four pillars are evenly divided between the aesthetics and the technical.  So what are they?  The two aesthetic pillars are Fantastic Light and Strong Composition.  No surprise there.  The two technical pillars are Appropriate Sharpness and Optimum Exposure.  No surprise there either.  If just one of those pillars is missing, well, the table collapses, the image suffers.

Let’s look at them one by one….

joshua_tree_spring_sunrise_2011
Joshua Tree Spring Sunrise (2011)
(click on the images to enlarge them)

Continue reading “Making a Photograph – The Four Pillars”

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A Ten-Step Program for Grad ND Filters

I have a couple of Lee graduated neutral density filters in my camera bag.  I don’t use them very much because I’m kind of an HDR guy.  But the past couple of mornings we’ve had some very clear sunrises and given the location of our home in the Southern California foothills this turned out to be a good opportunity to play around with my grad ND filters.

I discovered a few very interesting things.  I’m just going to provide a checklist here without any illustrations.  Hopefully it will make sense.

Continue reading “A Ten-Step Program for Grad ND Filters”

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