Photography Workshop: Learning to Take Photos with Split Neutral Density

This is Maroon Lake near Aspen early one fall morning. As you can see, part of the mountain is lighted, part is not; yet the color of the valley is visible. Additionally, the reflection in the lake is almost the same brightness. In actuality, the lighted and unlighted portion of the mountain was two F-stops difference, the image in the lake was one F-stop different from the real image. The challenge was to bring all the areas (4 different exposures) of the photo into similar exposure, this was done using split neutral density filters.

I based my exposure on the darkest area of the image - the reflection of the unlighted portion of the valley. I then applied a one F-stop filter from the distant shore to the top of the frame, a two F-stop filter over the lighted mountains and sky, and another inverted two F-stop filter upside down to decrease the exposure of the sky in the lake. The result is relatively even exposure throughout the frame so that all the detail can be seen.

Trying to capture this image is a good case for digital. I shot the image on a Nikon D100 with a Nikkor 24-120 in the 24mm position. The exposure was 1/4 at F/16. Although the image is achievable in any type of camera, digital make it easier to refine the process. In my digital photography workshops we cover the use of neutral density filters for applications such as this.

As with all images appearing on this site, they are the property of Loren French, and they are protected by copyright. Any images can be purchased as prints, or right to use can be purchased for any use.

Purchase Print

5x7 Print $15.00 8x10 Print $30.00 10x15 Print $45.00 16x20 Print $60.00 20x30 Print $75.00 24x36 Print $85.00