Is there any one who doesn’t absolutely love sunrises and sunsets? Dawn and dusk are the most beautiful times of the day in large part, because of the gorgeous colors that come out. I’m also always awed by the majesty of nature as well and watching the sun rise and fall is one of the simplest ways to observe your place in the universe. Or perhaps that’s just me.

Photography is all about light but sunrises and sunsets present a unique challenge for us practitioners of the art. How do you take a picture of a scene that’s simultaneously light and dark? Bright skies lead to pictures with dark foregrounds and exposing you photo correctly for the trees or water in front of you makes the sky way too bright and even overblown. There are several fixes for this but this post is about one specific one that I’m trying out: neutral density filters

What is a neutral density (ND) filter? The simplest answer is that it’s a piece of darkened glass that goes on your lens. Often, landscape photographers use them when there’s way too much light. It forces you to drop your shutter speed so you can capture something like the movement of a babbling brook. It can also filter out certain unwanted wavelengths giving your photo some depth. Yes, photo editing software can fix a lot of flaws but it often comes at the price of good resolution so correcting your lighting problems in camera is always the better option.

Because I want to shoot sunrises and sunsets, I opted for a set of graduated ND filters with various levels of darkness and color. The first place I took my new set of filters was to a neighborhood lake where I often go kayaking. I’m definitely not a morning person so I was there for the sunset. Unfortunately, I was a we bit too late but the lighter gND filter still worked quite nicely.

Later in the week, I tried my new set out again but this time, for sunset by river near the weir and train bridge. Personally, I like the silhouetted look of a black foreground against the sunset but the gND filters definitely allow me to bring out some detail in the foreground without compromising too much on image quality.

Obviously, I have a lot to work on but I’m very excited by my new toy. We are so lucky in Saskatchewan to have such gorgeous skies and I’m really looking forward to capturing more of the colors of of our days.