Bracketing?

[Ben]

Do you guys use this at all? Useful?

[Sonny]

What is it?

[rphoto]

I have never used it but there are times that I should have.

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by Sonny

What is it?

From another website!


What Is... Exposure Bracketing
Exposure bracketing is a simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations.

When you expose for a scene, your camera's light meter will select an aperture / shutter speed combination that it believes will give a properly exposed picture.

Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera's light meter.

The reason you do this is because the camera might have been 'deceived' by the light (too much or too little) available and your main subject may be over- or under-exposed. By taking these three shots, you are making sure that if this were ever the case, then you would have properly compensated for it.


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I have never done it, nor felt a need to do it.

[awsilver]

Stepping the exposure by 1/2 or 1/3 in a series of 3 pictures (same subject) (and I say three cause I believe most digitals do auto bracketing in a series of 3, film you could go do however many you wanted, since it was a bit of a manual process anyway) with one over, one on, and one under "proper" metered exposure. It's an interesting technique although used it more in the film days...nowadays you just push it around in photoshop raw and get the same "selection" :D. At least that's what I had used it for in the past...anyone else, or maybe a better way to explain it???

Not sure if you could use this to do HDR images (since I've never tried it)...so as far as "useful" anymore, I'm not sure.

[awsilver]

I must type too slow...Hogleg beat me to it!

[CaptainTom]

Since shooting digital I have not felt it necessary to bracket exposure. Of course, after previewing the histogram I have adjusted my exposure accordingly. Back in the old film days, bracketing was a technique utilized by all professionals to insure proper film exposure. When we got polaroid backs (no, not because the cameras were so heavy) we knew we were getting proper exposures immediately.

[LoungeLizard]

Like aswilver mentioned, I used to use it when shooting film, but with RAW, I find no need for it.

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by awsilver

I must type too slow...Hogleg beat me to it!

I cheated...I copied it from Google!

[Ben]

thanks guys. i thought it was worthless too, so I had to see if i was missing out.

[engstrom]

Actually one good use for it with digital is HDR processing in PS CS2.

[JamesB]

I use it from time to time to combine the 3 brackets or at least 2 of the shots into 1 image to get the results I was wanting in the photo. I only do this a few times a year

James

[jeffkohn]

I think it's certainly still useful with digital, even when shooting RAW. You can't recover completely blown highlights, and boosting the shadow areas too much will increase noise. So getting the perfect exposure in-camera is preferable to having to make large exposure adjustments during raw conversion.

Also for landscapes/senics it's not unusual for the scene's contrast to exceed the dynamic range of your camera, in which case one shooting multiple exposures and combining in post is the only way to capture both the shadows and highlights properly.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

I think it's certainly still useful with digital, even when shooting RAW. You can't recover completely blown highlights, and boosting the shadow areas too much will increase noise. So getting the perfect exposure in-camera is preferable to having to make large exposure adjustments during raw conversion.

Also for landscapes/senics it's not unusual for the scene's contrast to exceed the dynamic range of your camera, in which case one shooting multiple exposures and combining in post is the only way to capture both the shadows and highlights properly.

This makes a lot of sense. gracias!

[CaptainTom]

Originally Posted by Ben

This makes a lot of sense. gracias!

Yes, it certainly does make a lot of sense. Now I just need to learn the post production technique to be able to utilize this.....
One day at a time..