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This article from 1999 has now been superceeded bya newer onethat detailsthree different blending techniques that are more appropriate for digital photographers.

The ProblemColour transparency film has a useful dynamic range of about 4-5 stops between the lightest area with any detail and the darkest. Beyond that is found featureless black or transparent white. Colour negative film has a couple of additional stops and B&W film another stop or so. But, nature can present the landscape photographers with scenes having a dynamic range of 10 stops or more — double that which slide film can handle.

Most landscape photographers, myself included, usesplit neutral density filtersto bring the dynamic range of a scene down to the range that film can handle. Occasionally I've found myself without a set of split NDs, faced with a challenging exposure. Below is one such example and the technique that I used to overcome it.

Matkatamiba Canyonƒâ€˜ Grand Canyon, May 2000Photograph...

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Michael Reichmann is the founder of the Luminous Landscape. Michael passed away in May 2016. Since its inception in 1999 LuLa has become the world's largest site devoted to the art, craft, and technology of photography. Each month more than one million people from every country on the globe visit LuLa.
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