LEE Filters SW150 System 0.9 Neutral Density Grad Hard Filter

The LEE Filters range of Neutral Density (ND) Graduated Filters enable the photographer to selectively adjust exposure across the frame without affecting colour balance.

They are almost essential in modern landscape photography on both digital and film cameras and come in a range of strengths denoting the light stopping power of the filter.

Compatible with both digital and film photography

Whatever format you shoot, ND Grads help cameras record scenes more as we see them - with a broad tonal range that's lost if not captured at the moment.

Precise creative control

There is a place in landscape photography for both hard and soft grads. Which one you decide to use will depend mainly on the subject matter of your image.

As a general rule, a hard grad would be used for images containing a horizon, or any hard transition between the sky and the foreground - even with jagged or mountainous horizons, the exposure can be controlled far easier with a hard grad.

Soft grads perform best in woodland, mist, or interiors. Anywhere where there is no definite transition between sky and foreground, a soft grad will gently balance exposure across the image.

The most common use for a single ND grad would be to balance the exposure difference between the sky and the foreground in a landscape image, retaining the natural colours and detail without over-exposing and "burning out" parts of the image.

For example, when photographing a landscape in which the sky is much brighter than the foreground, placing the neutral density part of the filter onto the sky in the frame will reduce the sky exposure without affecting the foreground. This enables cloud detail to be kept correctly exposed in the picture and avoids the "white-out" effect caused by exposing for the foreground. Even with the advent of digital RAW capture and image manipulation, ND grads remain an important tool, as lost highlight detail (in the same way as a burnt-out area in a transparency) cannot be recovered if above the maximum recording threshold.

Ultimate flexibility

ND Grads can be stacked together, or with other filters, so you can respond to almost any lighting situation.