In the image above on the left, Galen exposed for the sunlit red rocks and totally lost the foreground in dark shadow.

Using a 3-stop, soft-edged grad for the image above on the right, he was able to expose for the rocks and also capture the detail and color in the shadows that he could see with his eyes.

“Use of graduated neutral density filters is not as obvious as it seems. My success rate has gone up at least a thousand percent since I first bought a cheap neutral density graduated filter in the seventies and began experimenting with it to make photos that I hoped would more closely record the colors and tones I naturally saw. I soon discovered that, as with all good things in life, there is no free lunch.

“Each Galen Rowell Singh-Ray ND grad in the set… serves a different purpose. When I go light and carry just two, I choose one that has a soft, gradual shift from clear to a two-stop gradation (2-stop soft) and another that abruptly changes from zero to three stops across only five pecent of its area (3-stop hard) for typical use across straight horizons in sunrise or sunset situations. On serious photo assignments or personal expeditions I feel naked without my full set of four ND grads.”

–Galen Rowell