Lenses for landscape photography.

[g dan mitchell]

<p>The process of simulating the use of a GND takes about... 15 seconds in post. :-)</p>

<p>(To describe more fully - With the camera on the tripod and set up to expose, I typically might make two exposures rather than one with one optimized for bright and the other for dark - maybe a stop or two apart. This does add perhaps a couple of seconds to the capture process, and I only do it for those photos that might require it - a wild guess is that this is 5% or fewer. If the subject is one where the GND filter might have been a fine alternative - e.g. - a sunset sky over the horizon - the blend process is half automated in post. I use a free ACR plug-in that automatically opens the two component images as smart layers in Photoshop. The GND-equivalent blend is made by making a new layer mask on the upper image (1 second?) then drawing a gradient on the mask (5 seconds?) if all I want to do is replicate the GND filter's capabilities.)</p>

<p>And, though I'm not an HDR kinda' guy, I have friends and colleagues who use it much as you describe in your "interior of a church" example - in useful and subtle ways that you might not even recognize as using HDR.</p>

<p>Finally, my primary reason for writing that long post about the pluses and minuses of blending and GND filters is not to suggest that your approach is right or wrong nor that one is better or worse <em>for individual photographers</em>, but to try to provide some accurate and perhaps useful information about how the process is applied by those who do prefer it.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[dan_south]

<p>Thanks! Ditto!</p>

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[dan_south]

<p>And let's throw in a handheld shot for good measure. Tripod use is forbidden at this marina, so I cranked the ISO up to 3200, positioned the filter carefully, and let her rip.</p><div></div>