Graduated Neutral Density Filter
A filter that is dark at one end and clear at the other, used to hold back a bright sky while leaving the land unaffected.
Measured in
stops (EV)
In depth
Grads come in hard, soft and reverse transitions: hard for flat horizons, soft for broken skylines, reverse for sunrises where the brightest band sits at the horizon itself. They are held in a slot holder so the transition can be positioned precisely. Digital blending can imitate them, but a grad captures the full range in a single frame, which matters when anything in the scene is moving.
Examples in practice
A three-stop soft grad placed on a mountain horizon holds cloud detail that would otherwise clip while keeping foreground rocks exposed.