Neutral Density Filters are Our Friends!

Let’s start with the generic definition provided by Wikipedia.

In photography and optics, a neutral density filter or ND filter can be a colorless (clear) or grey filter. An ideal neutral density filter reduces and/or modifies intensity of all wavelengths or colors of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition.

The purpose of standard photographic neutral density filters is to allow the photographer greater flexibility to change the aperture, exposure time and/or motion blur of subject in different situations and atmospheric conditions.

Basically a Neutral Density Filter (ND Filter) can be used in almost an unlimited amount of ways in artistic photography. First and foremost is the coveted daytime long exposure. By adding a ND Filter to your lens, it will allow you to expose for a longer amount of time, thus adding motion blur to any object that you are shooting. Cue the classic waterfall shots with soft, velvety water that just screams computer desktop background image!

Another great use for a ND Filter is a graduated filter that only affects certain quadrants of the lens itself. Most common ND filters are between 1-3 stops and from the edge of the glass to the center gradually become less noticeable. This is the lens that we will be using in some bridge shots in San Francisco. Below you will see our base image. There is nothing too special about this image. It is correctly exposed with a decent depth of field to shot just how large the bridge is in the frame.

Now if we added a ND Filter of 2 stops to the bottom half of the image, we have much darker water that would give the appearance that this was shot much later in the day due to the lack of clear definition of shadows on the water surface. The color is only changed due to the fact that the ND Filter required more time to correctly expose this part of the frame. It is important to remember that you should be using spot metering when using ND Filters and to choose AF point that is not inside the ND Filter’s part of the lens. On the same picture of the bridge below, a ND Filter of 2 stops was used on the bottom half of the lens. The water is much darker, and there is much more contrast on the face of the cliff in camera left under the bridge.

Finally we will rotate the Neutral Density Filter to the top of the lens and again shoot the same picture. This time the sky will be much darker on the top half of the frame. This gives the sky a more dramatic appearance.

In the end, a ND Filter is a tool that every photographer should have in his or her bag of tricks. It gives you the ability to adjust the amount of light that is coming into the sensor as you take a picture, and allowing you to have full control over every aspect of your shot. If you have any questions or would like to suggest an article for next week, email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Until next time, remember to always remove your lens cap!

Matthew Budnick

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