Anyone who has been looking deep into landscape photography gear knows that filters are a constant recommendation. The three most common in landscape photography are neutral density filters, graduated neutral density filters, and polarizers.
Quality filters are not very cheap, and are specific to a lens thread diameter. This means you need to invest in either multiple filters or step up rings if you use more than one lens for landscape photography. At the same time, modern RAW imaging and post processing tools can make almost anything possible with editing.
With this, the question has to be asked: do you need filters for landscape photography? Because the three filters we mentioned above have their own unique uses, we’re going to ask this question for each filter type. Let’s dive in.
If you love landscape photography, check out our interview with Ole Henrik, a fantastic photographer with a unique eye for landscape shots. We dig into his ideas, workflow, and essential gear.
1) Neutral Density Filters
Commonly referred to as “ND” filters, neutral density filters are simply sunglasses for your camera. This reduces the amount of light that enters your lens. Allowing less light into you camera provides flexibility in exposure settings (as long as you have a tripod). A common example is the flexibility in reducing your shutter speed on a bright day.
When your scene is too bright, slowing down your shutter speed may require closing your aperture as much as possible for proper exposure. We know that lens sharpness can be hindered at the extremes of the aperture ranges, so this is not ideal. ND filters allow us to darken our scene and give us more options in our exposure settings.
If you’ve seen flowy waterfalls or smoky ocean surfaces taken in broad daylight, ND filters were most likely used.
Do you need one?
Short answer: no. Long answer: it depends.
The necessity of an ND filter greatly depends on where and when you usually shoot. If you typically photography low light landscape environments, then you should have no problem slowing down your shutter speed without a filter. Sometimes reducing your ISO will be enough to get your shutter and aperture exactly where you want.
Post processing is a little limited in what it can provide in the absence of an ND filter. This is due to the fact that exposure time can’t really be adjusted in post if you are trying to add any blurred motion. However, if you know your sensor’s recoverable range of highlights, you can shoot overexposed and correct in post. This will allow you to capture a little more motion blur with no downfalls as long as you don’t clip any highlights. This is a great way to take advantage of your camera’s capabilities if you don’t have an ND filter on you.
An ND filter offers more flexibility in changing our exposure settings, but it’s not an absolute necessity. If you enjoy long exposures and find yourself limited in bright conditions, ND filters may be handy to keep in your camera bag.
How to Choose an ND filter
To choose an ND filter, you first need to know what your lens thread diameter is. Different size lenses have different threads so be sure to get one specific to your primary landscape lens. If you are planning to get an expensive ND filter and know that you will use it on multiple lenses, it’s a good idea to look into step up rings. The idea here is to get the filter with the largest thread available, and use adapting step up rings so you can use that one filter on multiple lenses. If you’re a ‘single lens’ type of landscape photographer, then the specific thread ND filter is the way to go.
After determining the thread size, you need to choose how dark you want your filter to be in ‘stops’. Variable ND filters are also available, however those are a whole other animal and deserve their own post. In short, they are two polarizing filters. Most have other effects on your images in addition to the exposure change. These also get pricey if you want ones with the best optical quality. If you are interested in looking deeper into variable ND filters, checkout this great in depth video by Gerald Undone.
Back to fixed/solid ND filters. A rough way to actually test out how many stops you need is to select a scene that is more or less a good representation of where an ND filter would be most useful to you. Once you dial in some of your desired settings, regardless of the exposure, see how many stops your meter is showing overexposed. Doing this a few times will tell you what stop reduction range would be useful.
2) Graduated Neutral Density Filters
Graduated ND filters are exactly what they sound like. It is an ND filter that transitions from dark on one end to clear on the other. These are a very common accessory for landscape photographers. Their primary purpose is to compensate for the extra brightness above the horizon. This helps get a proper overall exposure in a single image. The sky in landscape images is almost always brighter than the foreground. This is especially true with golden hour images, when the sun is barely lighting up the foreground, but lighting up the rest of the sky very well.
Do you need one?
If you have access to any post processing software. I firmly believe graduated ND filters are not worth the expense. There are many ways to get this effect in post, and often times with much more control which lead to better results.
Advantages
First, let’s go through the advantages of graduated ND filters. The most obvious advantage is reducing your time in post, which is definitely underrated. Also, when capturing an image with a properly exposed sky and foreground, your exposure flexibility in post processing with a single image is increased as your dynamic range has decreased. With RAW you are able to adjust exposure a limited amount before you see negative effects. Less adjusting is needed with a evenly exposed image.
Disadvantages
Now for the disadvantages of graduated filters. First, graduated filters and filter holders are expensive. Screw on graduated ND filters are more affordable, but lack flexibility of a filter holder design. Second, you need to purchase the right stop reduction (or darkness) for your scene. Different scenes will require different stop reductions. Third, you are stuck with your filter’s transition from dark to clear. Sometimes you want a very gradual change in exposure. Other times you want a more abrupt change against the horizon. With a physical glass ND filter, this is obviously fixed.
Post Processing
Due to these weaknesses, I am very unlikely to invest in a graduated ND filter. So let’s talk about the solutions in post processing.
First, modern RAW cameras are able to recover around 1 to 2 stops of highlights well. High end sensors can recover over 3+ stops of exposure. If you have a camera that struggles here, a tripod and two separate exposures is a simple work around. Adobe Camera Raw, or Photoshop Lightroom, have graduated filter tools that let you choose the graduation strength, location, and transition. Because we are in Photoshop, we can also customize the graduation to not cover the entire image from end to end. Sometimes you don’t have a clean horizon across the entire image, and a custom graduated filter is needed to account for changes in your sky/foreground line. Beyond correcting exposure with a graduated filter, you can change color temperature, vibrance, and more!
Point is that post processing gives you so much more to work with as long you can recover detail well. Graduated filters are simply not worth the expense anymore for most, even though they have select advantages.
3) Polarized Filters
Polarizing filters are different to the two ND options mentioned above. Circular polarizing filters are mainly used to darken skies and also cut through reflections. Cutting through reflections sometimes can add vibrance to your images as well. As you turn a circular polarizing filter, it only allows a certain type of light.
Do you need one?
Can this effect be done in post processing? Well the short answer is no. A circular polarizer is changing the type of light that is entering our lens. It’s difficult to perfectly replicate the ‘filtering’ that a polarizer does for us.
If you are interested in images with darkened skies, or want to cut through reflections, a circular polarizer is definitely the way to go. I would try not to overdo the polarization effect. Images with black skies and white clouds may be great for creativity, but it definitely doesn’t represent reality if that is your goal.