Black Card Technique - Landscapes

This might be useful for people who wants to get into landscape photography but but do not have those expensive graduated neutral density filters.

this is a technique where you use a black opaque card to block and feather the bright parts of the frame on a long exposure shot.

1.first take the exposure of the sky ex : 5sec@f9
2.then the exposure of the foreground ex : 15sec@f9
3.block the the bright parts of the frame with a black card
4. take the shot while moving the black card up and down slightly to "feather" the graduation line for 10seconds.
5. remove the black card an let the sky expose for the remaining 5 seconds.


here are my takes on this technique

My take on this technique.
Shot with no filters, just a black wallet to block the bright areas of the frame
13 sec exposure, 7sec with the black wallet on then removed for the rest of the exposure.
i kinda like it better than using my ND grads looks way sharper.


30sec exposure, 24 sec with the black card, aperture at f9



30sec exposure, 24 sec with the black card, aperture at f6.3