As good as modern DSLRs are, point even a Nikon D4 or a Canon EOS 5D Mark III at a high-contrast landscape and you’ll often have to choose between having a washed-out sky or an underexposed foreground in your shot.

A quick and very effective solution is to use a graduated neutral density filter, or ‘ND grad’.

Clear at one end and grey at the other, the darker section of a graduated neutral density filter can be positioned to cover a bright sky, restricting light transfer by several stops so the foreground can expose correctly.

Various densities are available to suit different contrast levels, with many manufacturers offering filter systems consisting of several density grades with hard or soft transitions.

Hard grads are great if your scene has a straight horizon, but when the landscape is less uniform, the subtle transition of a soft grad will be more forgiving.

Finally, size matters. The bigger the graduated neutral density filter, the more lens diameters it’ll cover and the greater the flexibility you’ll have in positioning the transition area to suit your photo composition.

Lee Filters Neutral Density Hard Grad Set

Price: £180, $240 (+£55 holder; £20-40 per adaptor)

Lee Filters have gained a reputation for producing high-quality filters, so we tested their 100x150mm graduated neutral density filter set with a hard gradient transition.

It has three filters of 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 densities, so at the darkest point you can reduce light transfer by one, two or three stops.

In testing, the filters produced almost no colour casting, though they restricted slightly less light than other filters of equivalent densities in the group.

The large 100x150mm size of each filter gives you plenty of room to adjust your compositions.

However this kit is a serious investment, especially when you add in the cost of the filter holder and a lens adaptor ring.

Pros… Exceptional quality with no colour casting; versatile size
Cons… Expensive, especially with holder and adaptor rings
We say… Terrific quality, but there are cheaper options

Score: 3/5

PAGE 1: Lee Filters Neutral Density Hard Grad Set
PAGE 2: Hitech 100 Series ND Grad Soft Edge Filter Kit
PAGE 3: Cokin Z-PRO ND-Graduated Kit
PAGE 4: Cokin P-Series ND Grad Filter Kit
PAGE 5: SRB-Griturn ND Grad Kit
PAGE 6: Kood P-Type ND Filter Kit
PAGE 7: Five things to look out for when choosing the best graduated neutral density filter

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01 Set your ISO to 100 (or the lowest that your model of camera allows).

02 Set your exposure mode to Manual (M), and set the shutter speed to the B (or Bulb) setting.

03 Set the aperture to f/11. Depth of field is rarely an issue in super-slow shots, as only the main focus of the picture needs to be sharp. The rest will be blurred anyway because of the long exposure.

04 Frame up the image using a solid tripod; check composition carefully.

05 Focus on the focal point of the picture using autofocus. Keep the AF beep on, to reassure yourself the lens has focused. If dark, use a torch to light up the spot you want the lens to focus on.

06 Turn the switch on the camera body from AF to MF. This means that the focus is now locked (but be careful not to touch the focusing ring on the lens!).

07 Take a test picture and check the histogram to ensure parts of the image are not blown out. Note the shutter speed that gives you the ideal exposure.

08 Put the neutral density filter on the front of the lens. An 8-stop or 10-stop filter is ideal (an ND2.4 or ND3).

09 Use tables or an iPhone app to convert the shutter speed in step 7 to the one you’ll need with the picture.

10 Fire the shutter with a cable release. Time the exposure using a watch or smartphone app, then close the shutter with the remote.

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And on the second page of this article we’ve compiled a handy photography cheat sheet to understanding ND filter strengths and shutter speeds.

Tip 1: Choose a strength
ND filters come in a huge range of strengths. A one-stop (0.3 or ND2) filter cuts just 50% of light. A 10-stop (ND1000) filter blocks 99.9% of light. The stronger versions are best for seascapes.

Tip 2: Round or square?
Round filters are the best option for ND filters as they prevent any light leaks. However, if you use them in conjunction with ND grad filters, the square slot-in type are a good choice.

Tip 3: Variable ND filters
Variable ND filters use two polarising filters in one mount. The front ring is rotated to vary the ND’s strength. They’re popular for shooting video as you can use wide apertures, however bright the light.

Tip 4: Low-cost options
Cheap ND filters can cause colour casts. A useful tip is that two ND filters can be used together – two three-stop NDs on top of each other give a six-stop effect, and a standard circular polarising filter can block out almost two stops of light.

NEXT PAGE: Photography cheat sheet to ND filter strengths and speeds

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Timing is key to shooting great seascapes. You need to be there at the right time of day, but just as important is the timing of the exposure. For a raging, stormy sea, a fast shutter speed can be appropriate, but with calmer waters, the best approach is to take it slow. Very slow. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to take control of your camera to take long exposure pictures of the sea you can be proud of.

Shutter speeds that are seconds long turn even the gentlest waters into a smooth, silky blur, and the expanse of water takes on a milky white appearance that contrasts with the static rocks (find out some of the common mistakes at every shutter speed – and the best settings to use).

All landscapes will tend to look their best if you get up at first light, or stay out until dusk. But these dimmer parts of the day are particularly appropriate for milky seascapes, and the low light will give you longer exposures than shooting in the middle of the day.

However, a little bit of blur in the water isn’t enough to give you the effect you want, which means you either need to shoot after sunset or just before dawn, when the only light is reflected from the sky.

Alternatively, give your camera a helping hand by fitting an ND (neutral density) filter. These dark grey filters (not to be muddled up with graduated neutral density filters, or ND grads) block a percentage of the light entering the camera and enable you to use shutter speeds that are seconds long, even in the middle of the day.

ND filters are available in a variety of strengths. A three-stop ND will increase a shutter speed of 1/4 sec to 2 secs. A 10-stop ND will increase a 1/4 sec exposure to a full four minutes!

As these filters make your camera’s viewfinder very dark, they aren’t the easiest accessories to use, but our step-by-step guide will show you how to make sure you always come home with a great seascape.

NEXT PAGE: Step-by-step how to take long exposure pictures of the sea

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How to use ND filters

You’ll find ND filters in the kit bag of any professional landscape photographer. However, they tend to be less appreciated by amateurs. This may be due to the fact that, at first glance, they’re simply a plain, grey bit of glass!

They don’t radically affect the image that the camera captures, but merely slow down the amount of time it takes for the sensor to record the image.

But if used when elements of your scene are moving, such as water, clouds or even people, they open up a world of creative possibilities. Freeze a waterfall with a regular shutter speed and it looks static and rather dull; capture the water as a blur and it conveys a sense of movement.

ND filters give you the flexibility to set the aperture and shutter speed you want, rather than what the conditions dictate (find out some of the common mistakes at every shutter speed – and the best settings to use).

An ND filter can be used on a sunny day to slow things enough to create a sense of movement, but they’re even more effective around dawn or dusk, when they can turn an already-slow exposure into one several seconds long, enabling you, for example, to turn a surging tide into a gentle mist.

There are several different types of ND filter on the market. Circular threaded screw-in filters are the simplest to use, but have the disadvantage that stacking them together soon leads to vignetting issues.

Slot-in filters require you to first attach a filter holder to your lens via a ring adapter, then slot square or oblong filters into the holder – the chief advantage is that, once set up, it’s easy to swap filters, stack them or add different kinds of filter to the mix.

A more recent innovation are variable filters, which screw into the lens but have an adjustable outer ring, which you rotate to adjust the density depending on the light conditions and the effect you want.

PAGE 1: How to use ND filters
PAGE 2: When to use ND filters
PAGE 3: Things to look for in an ND filter

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Dial M for… Your exposure mods exposed

A long exposure can create milky water effects and is great for waterfall pictures, as well as blurred clouds in when shooting landscape photography; but that isn’t their only use. A long exposure is also handy for making moving subjects ‘disappear’ when you shoot buildings, street scenes or architecture. Sometimes it’s great to include people in a scene to give a sense of scale or location, but they can be distracting if you want a clean composition.

The shutter speed you’ll need for this long exposure technique depends on how quickly the subjects are moving.

For fast subjects such as cars or people very close to the camera, you can get away with a shutter speed of a couple of seconds, but for street scenes with people that are far away you’ll need to use a long exposure of at least 10 seconds. This is where the very strong ND filter comes into its own…

How to use a long exposure and an ND filter to remove crowds

01 Reduce noise
Long exposures can create noise in your images, so before you start, enable Long Exposure Noise Reduction in the Shooting menu settings. Scroll down to the ‘Long exp. NR’ option and use ‘OK’ on the control pad to switch it to on.

02 Keep it stable
If you’re using long shutter speeds, you’ll need to securely attach the camera to a tripod to avoid any possibility of camera-shake. Make sure the legs of the tripod are stable, and avoid using the centre column if you can. Use a remote release or self-timer to fire your digital camera.

03 Compose yourself
Once you attach the filter, it’s very difficult to see clearly through the viewfinder. This means you need to get your composition spot-on beforehand. Focus manually and set the focus to suit the subject. For most subjects, you’ll find setting the focus to infinity will be fine.

04 Set your exposure
With the camera in position, set the aperture to a small setting, such as f/16, and take a meter reading. Adjust the shutter speed accordingly, and take a quick test shot to make sure the scene is exposed correctly. For our scene, the exposure was 1/30 sec at f/16.

05 Add the filter
Neutral-density filters come in two types: a drop-in square system such as those from LEE and Cokin, or a round screw-in type such as those from Hoya and Light Craft Workshop. Whichever type you use, don’t move the camera or the focus setting when attaching the filter.

06 Adjust the exposure
With the filter in place, you’ll often find that the meter won’t work properly, so you’ll need to adjust the shutter speed to take account of the strength of the filter you’re using. For our scene, we needed an exposure of 15 secs at f/16 using a nine-stop ND filter.

ND Filter Numbers

Different brands use different numbering systems to indicate the strength of their ND filters. When it comes to the very strong models there are two commonly used systems.

The easiest to understand tells you how many stops of light the filter will reduce the exposure by, so you’ll find the filter described as a nine- or 10-stop ND. The other numbering system uses the filter factor, or how much you have to multiply the exposure by when using the filter.

For each stop of light that the filter blocks, you need to double the exposure time, so for a 10-stop ND filter, multiply the exposure by approximately 1,000.

Tired of textbook landscape photos? Want photo ideas that offer you something a little more impressionistic? Then go slow and get moving. By using slow shutter speeds and moving the camera smoothly during the exposure, you can create striking abstract landscapes. Shoot handheld for unpredictable results or – as we explain here – use a tripod and move the camera in one direction for more defined scenic ‘streaks’.

Choosing the right subject is the key to success with this technique, so keep an eye out for landscapes that have strong lines – the vertical lines of the tall trees in this forest were perfect. Before you start taking your shots, try 
to visualise how the image will look with the treatment applied by looking at the scene through squinted eyes.

To achieve the effect seen in our main image, simply move your DSLR up and down during a fairly long exposure (in this case we used 1/3 sec). As you would imagine, there’s an element of trial and error involved, so you’ll need to be prepared to experiment – and of course, don’t forget to pack plenty of memory cards. We found that to get the best results we needed the right combination of vertical panning speed and shutter speed. We also got better results on dull overcast days, when exposure times were naturally extended.

Best camera settings and technique for long exposure landscapes

1. Set your shutter speed

Take control by switching to Manual shooting mode – Shutter Priority will also work – and dialling in a slow shutter speed. Anywhere from 10 sec to 1/15 sec will work. We ended up shooting at 1/3 sec for this project. If conditions are too bright to achieve this slow speed, use a lower ISO setting. Already there? Fit a Neutral Density filter.

2. Straighten up

A sturdy tripod is essential, ideally with a 3-way head so that you can precisely control the movement in one direction. Align your camera so that it pans in the vertical axis – if it’s slightly off, your vertical lines will appear at an angle.

3. Get moving

Use a cable release so that you don’t create any unwanted horizontal movement during the exposure. Start moving the camera vertically just before you fire the shutter so you capture a fluid motion.

Control your motion with a sturdy tripod and a 3-way head to avoid the kind of unwanted shake that results in this kind of indistinct blur. That said, you might find images like this just as appealing – Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) photography is on-trend right now.

We panned our D-SLR through a vertical axis during a slow shutter speed of 1/3 sec to create this striking abstract landscape.

Exclude the foreground from your composition for a more abstract effect. This adds a fabulous air of artistic mystery to the whole scene.

In our hectic, image-saturated world it’s easy to see why Zen-like minimalist photography has become popular. Simple framing, long exposures, square crops and eery mono treatments can create stunning and visually soothing results. The good news is that they’re also simple to create. Here, we’ll share tips that will help you to get similar minimalist landscapes of your own, including how to use an ND filter to slow shutter speeds, how to avoid camera shake and how to convert your RAW file to black and white.

While many subjects can work for a minimalist composition, scenes that capture the tranquillity of water work exceptionally well. So, with that in mind, we headed to the seaside town of Clevedon in the UK. The brown, muddy water didn’t lend itself to colour images, but looked great in black and white.

Black and white conversions work very well with minimalist landscapes or seascapes; sometimes, less really can mean more. A great exponent of this approach is Michael Kenna, whose approach to seascapes is entirely surreal. Using a square format, and often heavily vignetted, his work is particularly noted for creative use of long exposures. This turns otherwise obvious textures, such as clouds and waves, into soft suggestion by heavy ND filter usage or shooting in extremely low light. It’s this exploitation of movement that creates his famed dreamlike effect.

To master this simple technique we recommend looking for a visual anchor. If you’re shooting near the coast, try using features such as groins or posts, because these lead the viewer’s eye into the frame. We created a symmetrical composition to reinforce the simplicity of the framing and pre-visualised a square crop.

Sometimes the sheer lack of features can be just as compelling. 3-stop, 6-stop and even 10-stop Neutral Density (ND) filters can give much greater control of shutter speed and should be top of the minimalist landscape photographer’s kit list. See our guide to using ND filters for long exposures in daylight.

Step 1: Keep your camera still

To avoid blur caused by camera shake during the long exposure, take all the usual precautions, such as using a tripod, a cable release (or self-timer) to fire the shutter, and locking the mirror in the up position.

Step 2: Use an ND filter to slow things down

Compose and focus your image, then attach a Neutral Density filter to your lens to reduce the amount of light that hits the sensor, in this case by 10 stops. On our shoot, this gave an exposure of 15 secs.

Step 3: Edit your RAW file

Use your RAW editor to make a mono conversion (we used the Black and White Mix tab in Lightroom 3). Create a square crop, then use Graduated Filter to apply an ND Grad effect that gently darkens the sky.

It’s essential to pre-visualise how your whole scene will work as a long exposure and in black and white before you start shooting.

Initially we tried to avoid the people here, but in retrospect they added a haunting human presence that’s surprisingly effective.

A long exposure of 15 seconds and a simple, symmetrical composition helped to create this srong minimalist scene.