Sunset: Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains If you are a landscape photographer you likely have a set of graduated neutral density filters. Although how to use them is fairly straight forward are you sure you are using them as best as possible? Below are seven tips for getting the most out of using your grad-ND’s. 1) A good starting guideline for determining which filter strength to use to get a natural looking composition is to meter the sky, then meter the ground and allow for about a 1 to 1.5 stop difference. So if the sky is three stops brighter than the ground, a 2-stop filter is usually your first choice. 2) Filters, all filters, can have a tendency to create flare when there is a very bright source of light in the composition like the sun. This is because unlike the elements in your lens, filter surfaces are flat. Since the sensor in your digital camera is highly reflective, bright sources of light like the sun can bounce off the sensor onto the flat filter and back again creating or enhancing flare. If you are shooting with the sun in your composition and it is not very low in the horizon or diffused through thick air, then you may want to consider not using a filter and instead bracket and blend exposures, or create and HDR to get around the flare problem. Winter in Greenbrier, Great Smoky Mountains 3) Larger, Z-size hard-edge grad-ND’s can easily double as a regular ND filter to slow shutter speed. Very dense screw-on ND filters, like 6 or 9 stops, can reduce so much light that you cannot see what you are doing or focus and therefore may need to screw it on and off to do your work. The same is true when you need to stack a ND filter with a polarizing filter. When very dense filters or filter combinations are needed it can be advantageous to use your large hard-edge grad-ND, if you own this size, since it allows enough light for composing and focusing before quickly placing the hard edge filter in front of the lens, before clicking the shutter. This can make like much easier in the field. 4) When handholding filters it can be important to hold your filter flat against the lens else you may get glare or reflections from bright areas on the camera side of the filter and potentially ruin the shot with unwanted reflections. Density Differences/Focal Lenght 5) The transition edge of your filter is significantly softer and narrower at longer focal lengths than shorter focal lengths. The difference can be so huge that a 3-stop hard edge may be required at 200mm to compensate for the earth/sky transition break that a 2-stop soft filter can handle when using a wide-angle lens. See my article Graduated ND Filters: Transition Variables You Need To Know. 6) When using a hard-edge filter if you find the transition edge is too abrupt then consider handholding as you feather it – jiggle up and down, while you are pressing the shutter to make that transition smoother. Also, keep the filter as close as possibly to the lens since the further away from the filter is to the lens the stronger the transition. 7) Stacking filters, hard with soft, hard with hard, and soft with soft, and offsetting them as needed is perfectly acceptable to get the density and gradation you need making the expense of investing in the rarely needed 4 or more stop filters useful but unnecessary. IMO the essential set of grad-ND’s include a total of four filters, 2-3 stop hard and soft. As a final note, when it comes to carrying your grad-nd filters in the field if you have several filters it can be much more convenient to not use the included pouch but instead purchase a third party filter pouch like the Adorama Slinger --- see article Carrying Filters in the Field.