Using Ansel Adam's metering system for digital photography
 

I just finished reading a really interesting article and its got me thinking:

Achieve Beautiful Landscape Photos with a Neutral Density Filter

what are your thoughts?

As someone who really enjoys shooting landscapes.. I don't know. Photoshop can do a lot these days.. I don't think those filters are necessary unless you really need to balance out a very bright white sky.

Photoshop is no substitute for getting the exposure right in-camera. You potentially increase noise, lose sharpness & detail. BUT, if the difference between the highlights and shadows is less than about 4 stops, then the digital GND filter that's built into Lightroom works quite well. Or, you can take 3 shots of differing exposures and stack them in Photoshop.

Look at ColinK's landscapes on page 509 in the snapshots thread - can't do that without a GND filter without some work in Photoshop. With a GND filter, you just press the shutter.

^ Ditto and it saves a lot of time!

In Lightroom, the Grad Filter always seems to give alot of noise in my skies but still an essential tool if you dont have the real thing. I recently purchased a Cameron Fader ND and its awesome but gives alot of Vignetting depending on how dark you go. Wish i got a grad instead...

^^^ Are you using Lightroom2 or 3? Lightroom3 does a much better job with the noise issue, but you shouldn't use too much of a gradient as it will make the image noisier. It also comes down to how big your final image will be - in print or on the screen.