MWojton Loc: Yardley, PA

I have a feeling the answers are going to be all over the place. And I'm not sure how to ask the question clearly. But let's say I'm shooting landscapes- would it be better to take one shot in RAW format or several bracketed shots? Which of the above would give me more to use in post processing?

Mike

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Shoot in RAW mode, and also take multiple shots.

Work a scene too. Shoot from different angles, shoot with different framing. Move left for a set, move right for another. Taking 100, or 200, different views is one way to assure that in the end you get the one that is right.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Without knowing the camera, it's good general practice to shoot raw regardless. If the contrast range is too great, you can get good results with shooting bracketed shots and manually merging, or using an HDR program to merge them. Lastly, if you have a camera known to have a great dynamic range, 10 stops or more, then you can probably get away with a single raw shot and just use exposure, shadow and highlight recovery to bring the image into balance.

SS319

RAW and Bracketing are two separate techniques. that being said... I would shoot RAW and

For Landscapes - with strong or difficult lighting I would Bracket +/- 1 1/2 - 2 stops, and I would use a tripod. Anything other than landscapes and still life, I would probably narrow my brackets to +/- 1 - 1 1/2 stops.

My camera (Canon 750D) advertises 12 stops of dynamic range for the sensor, the Canon 5DM4 and Nikon 810 are 13 and 14 respectively (for the record, the standard in film days KR25 had at best 7 stops of range) If you stop(?) to think about that, my camera will deliver 2^12 or 4096 times as much light in the bright white as it has in the coalbin black and still show detail, Kodachrome would only offer 128 times the light between extremes.

In a RAW processor, that is a lot of light to deal with

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Although I don't have the experience of Apaflo, for what it's worth I completely agree with him.

Part of the beauty of digital photography is processing is cheap. You don't have to pay another company to process each shot you take. That's not to say you shouldn't get the best shot you can out-of-camera. But you can inexpensively experiment all you want with different styles without paying a fortune in prints.

Try everything, find the style that best fits your likes.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

RAW and bracketed are two different things. One is how you store the image, the other is how you take the image. Regardless of how you store them, bracketing allows you to combine multiple images in an editor to create a "combined" image (best aspects of each image). I believe most editors will allow you to manipulate multiple images in either format.

SS319

And in camera storage is cheap! we can store several hundred images today for less than the cost of film and processing of 12 - 36 images on film. And we could only use that film once, now, we send the images (to our computer) for processing and empty the "film" and shoot it over!

With film, you wasted time and effort by taking a shot that was not perfect, today, you waste time and effort by not taking a shot.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Exactly!!

canon Lee

Took the words out of my mouth.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Mike,
Here's the casual way to get to get to the exposure that will assure use of your camera's maximum allotment of raw-accessible dynamic range and may (likely) just preclude the need for bracketing and HDR.

Set to Raw, and use your lowest ISO.
Set to the exposure that JUST causes clipping if you were shooting JPEGS.
Then start adding 2/3 stops with three or four sequential exposures
Open the series of exposure in your raw converter, tonally normalize them in sequence (by moving the Expoosure" slider to the left) and find the exposure that actually reveals highlight clipping.

THEN use the PREVIOUS exposure and add 1/3 stop for two or three exposures.Tonally nor,alize and you'll find the brightest exposure that comes as close as possible to clipping without actually doing so.

THAT'S a perfectly exposed raw image data capture!

That's the basis of Expose Beyond the Right (EBTR)

That way you'll find the amount of exposure to add to the JPEG clipping exposure to attain the appropriate raw data capture exposure. (the camera manufacturers just don't tell you this!)

Dave

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

If you need bracketing, do it in raw!!

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

always shoot RAW and you can bracket it also,

tdekany Loc: Oregon

If the scene calls for, by all means bracket your shots. On my Olympus EM1 the camera makes it very easy, once I tell it whether I want 3/5 or 7 shots and whether I want 1 or 2 evs between them. As you were told, always shoot raw and expose for the highlight. While I will never be a decent photographer, I am a sucker for sharpness so I go one step further and I focus bracket as well. The lens I use is the 12-40mm 2.8 zoom (24-80) which is sharpest at F4. I will take 2 or 3 shots of the same scene, focusing on the foreground, in the middle of the scene and finally in the back of the scene. In fact all I have to do is touch the LCD screen on the back of the camera where I want it to focus and I use a few second delay. Just a little extra work but the results are superior to stopping down to get the deep DOF that is needed. I use photoshop to merge. However non of this guarantees an award winner unfortunately. Subject matter, impact, composition, light should be more important to the photographer than any of the techy stuff. But that is not easy to master.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Also note : if taking panoramas there can be a gradient shift across the individual images. When post processing note the numbers associated with any and every slider. try to keep them similar (not always exactly the same) and after each processing check the final image where the overlaps abut. (you can then adjust the offending image(s) on a second or third process. The Raw processor generally has a greater amount of numerical information available to you.
Have fun

leftyD500 Loc: Ocala, Florida

I feel I am bracketing when I shoot raw, allow me to explain. When I shoot in raw, I feel I am capturing tremendous amount of information, like a wide range of highlights, a wide range of shadows, etc. I can take that photo into photoshop (I use CS6), save the original. Then, in photoshop, I can take original photo, adjust the exposure to -1, save it, then back in photoshop, take original photo, adjust the exposure to +1, save it. I now have three copies of said photo, one the original, one underexposed by one stop, one overexposed by one stop. Now, I can merge those three photos, using photoshop, or, as I prefer, using Photomatix Pro 5.0. The exposure adjustments I listed are general, I can make whatever exposure adjustments I feel are necessary, or what I need to produce desired effects. It works for me.