I got up early before sunrise on my holiday to rush to the top of cadillac mountain in Acadia National Park Maine. It was my first time trying to use a grad ND filter. I had previously read how it is important to line up the filter at the actual aperture used, to be sure that it will be at the right level. I was amazed how hard it can be to judge this, even using the 3 stop hard filter. I tried rotating the filter to be sure where the line was. Any ways, despite all my efforts I seemed to have screwed up and put the line too high above the horizon. Might have been a nice shot otherwise. I guess you could try to fix this in photoshop. Obviously, there is a lot to learn about using these filters.
Don't fret it, lawrence...it takes practice and even then it's easy to make a mistake. This is great for a first attempt...in fact, I see no reason to be unhappy with the results.
Anyone who says (or thinks) that an ND grad must be aligned exactly with this-or-that (ex: hard edge must be directly on the horizon) is thinking too narrow. The usage here ended up bringing out a wonderful gradient. It may not be what you wanted but it still worked to a nice effect.
I wish the ground area weren't quite so soft in this scan. This scene works very well with your square format.
Excellent shot! The composition, timing and light are all very good. The placement of the grad was perfect! I really like the effect. Usually at sunrise (or sunset) the part of the sky closest to the horizon is the brightest. There are fancy reverse ND grads availble but they cost a bundle. As far as balancing exposure goes, you did a great job here with a normal grad. I think here, a 2-stop grad might give the sky a little more colour. Did you get the entire set? Lee filters are pretty expensive. I see that there is a small pool of water on the left reflecting the blue in the sky. It'd be interesting to use that more in the foreground.
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