Zach:

Brant gave a good run down of the filters out there and there uses. One he missed is not really going to help you photos, but is more intended to protect your lens... and that is the UV filter. There is a lot of debate over there usefulness, but they do protect you front element from get bumped, smudged, or sand blasted in heavy wind. I would rather clean my UV filter than have to scratch coatings on my front element by rubbing it.

From what I remember from some your posts, you have posted several sunrise/sunset shots that are well exposed for the nice colors in the sky, but the rest of the picture is a silhouette. Silhouettes are OK for some specific applications, but it does make for a rather flat scene with no real depth. If you like these types of shots and want to take them to the next level, I would think the the Grad ND would benefit you very well. The Grad ND really helps get landscapes out from the flat world of silhouettes and starts adding depth by bringing in detail, color, and reflections to the foreground of the scene.

The filters I use (in order of most used to least) are:

  1. Grad ND Filters - 1, 2, and 3 stop, reverse, hard edge (I use the 3 stop almost exclusively).
  2. CPL - As Brant said, it can be a used as a light ND filter also (1-2 stops). But it really shines at bringing out sky, leaf, and flower colors by removing glare that hides the colors. It is also great for bring out (revealing) the detail in wet surfaces - without it you get a lot of hot spots. I noticed a lot of your early post were flowers... the CPL will help with those as well.
  3. ND - Helps get longer exposures. Long exposures make magical things happen in landscapes... smooths out water, blurs clouds, streak clouds, smooths out waterfalls (water is rather chaotic w/o it) and yet all the stationary objects are really sharp and detailed.


Pat