Bracketing/Why? (Page 2): And this is an example of what can be done with a more recent camera with current software and exposing to protect the highlights

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

kfoo wrote:

I have read some articles on bracketing. They say that when you bracket photos, you underexpose 1 frame and overexpose 1 frame and 1 just right. If you can go to post processing programs and change everything, what good does it do to bracket if you can change every in pos processing? Am I missing something in these articles? I am just starting in photography and am still learning. Thanks in advance.

And this is an example of what can be done with a more recent camera with current software and exposing to protect the highlights - done without bracketing. I used a D800 and a newer version of Lightroom. I exposed for proper detail in the sunlit water in the center of the image. I used exposure, highlight and shadow recovery to re-balance the tones, then a trip through Photoshop to remove the woman in the red jacket and do some local contrast sharpening and noise abatement. The newer cameras are great. But much depends on exploiting the capabilities of both software and camera - I only shoot raw for this reason. This would not have been possible within the limitations imposed when you try and work with jpegs produced by the camera.

(Download)

TheDman Loc: USA

rmalarz wrote:

Then again, if you expose correctly and know the limits of your camera, a single exposure accomplishes the same thing.
--Bob

Your failed to accomplish it, since what's outside the door is blown out.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

kfoo wrote:

I have read some articles on bracketing. They say that when you bracket photos, you underexpose 1 frame and overexpose 1 frame and 1 just right. If you can go to post processing programs and change everything, what good does it do to bracket if you can change every in pos processing? Am I missing something in these articles? I am just starting in photography and am still learning. Thanks in advance.

When shooting RAW, if you have an error in White Balance, you can fix it in post no matter how far off it is. Exposure is a different story. If your exposure is far enough off to lose detail, you can't get it back. Too much exposure correction when shooting RAW can affect your image quality. Especially when you are starting out learning how to achieve the best exposure, bracketing can be useful so you can compare which one is best. As you learn how to expose correctly, there is less need for bracketing, unless you need to use HDR to capture a very contrasty scene.

cthahn

If you can take a perfectly exposed photo every time you do not have to bracket. If the photo you take is important and can not be taken over again, then bracket. Taking a photo that is over or under exposed and then correcting the exposure in Light Room or Photoshop is not the right way. It can be done, wastes time, and does not make you a good photographer.

Fotomacher Loc: Toronto

kfoo wrote:

I have read some articles on bracketing. They say that when you bracket photos, you underexpose 1 frame and overexpose 1 frame and 1 just right. If you can go to post processing programs and change everything, what good does it do to bracket if you can change every in pos processing? Am I missing something in these articles? I am just starting in photography and am still learning. Thanks in advance.

You bracket when there is more variation (dynamic range) in the physical scene than you camera can capture in one image. For example, detail in the shadows and detail in the bright areas. 3 or more exposures allow you to properly expose each distinct area of the frame and then composite them into a final image that preserves the detail of each. The reason for this difficulty in understanding is that the human eye/brain can process the scene and all of the details much better than film/digital sensors can. You have to capture RAW files to maximize the effort.

petego4it Loc: NY

Historically, I've bracketed a lot. Why? Initially as a film photographer because I found underexposing would notably help increase color saturation and that I often, in fact almost half the time preferred a half to a full stop of scene underexposure as the best shot. More recently with digital's wider dynamic range, and the related ETR logic, that's not so much a factor. Still useful tho because I still find that camera adjusted exposures can be preferable to those "fixed" in time consuming post...and thereby less post is needed and quicker output possible. Of course there are still the safety arguments of having more than one shot and now HDR... The arguments against are using up capacity on chip or disk, and needing to expend notable time sorting and throwing out the many more shots one downloads. Net, net for me still a valuable option.

WJShaheen Loc: Gold Canyon, AZ

Beautiful example. Thank you.

Gene51 wrote:

It's really very simple, and it is a technique I used a lot when cameras had less dynamic range than they do now.

If you take a picture of a scene that has a range of contrast that is beyond the cameras ability to record, you have four choices.

1. You can use a middle value for exposure, ensuring that most of the image is properly exposed. In high contrast scenes, the highlights will "blow out", often resulting in areas of detail-less white, and muddy, noisy shadows.

2. You can preserve the highlights, by exposing for them in such a way that they are not "blown out" but very close to being so. Looking at the camera's histogram will show a graph on the back of the camera that indicates where the values of the recorded image are, and the highlights, which are on the right, come right up to the right edge without "clipping" them or blowing them out. You can also turn on the camera's highlight warning to show you any blown highlights as blinking areas. This is fine for some shots, but they will typically render an image darker, which will require some post processing to raise the tonal values of the darker areas, and possibly clean up the noise in those areas differently than you would in the higher tones.

3. You can shoot for the shadows, increasing the exposure that you might normally use so that they are recorded with detail and lower noise. The resulting image may appear a bit lighter, and the highlights will most certainly be blown out.

3. You can use bracketed exposure. This uses all three of the above exposure techniques - and uses software that is able to create a tone mask for specific ranges of tonal values, and just using the best areas of exposure for each range of tonal values, and merging the various masks into a single image.

This is all fine and good, but bracketing has some serious limitations. If anything moves during the three shot capture, it will be blurry in the final image, so it works best with images of static subjects, and worst when there is lots of movement like tree leaves moving in the wind, active human or animal subjects etc.

When it is appropriate, you can make stunning images with very wide dynamic range without the clipping at the extremes (shadows and highlights) that can happen when using just a single exposure. With dynamic ranges on the newer cameras you get dynamic range of 12 stops or more, so there is less of a need to do bracketing. But sometimes you need to do it.

A church interior with gorgeous stained glass windows, waterfalls where the sun is shining on the bright white falling water, and the rest is in shadow, and even a day with an overcast sky, are times when bracketing can help.

Here is one of my early experiments with bracketed shots I took in 2007.

The first was exposed for the sky, letting darker tones fall where they may. Second was exposed for midtones, and much of the sky is clipped, blown out. The third is exposed for shadows, all of the sky is completely and irrevocably lost. The last image is a merged file of the prior three. I used Lightroom's 'Merge to HDR" to quickly create the merged image, with a little bit of adjusting for tonal values and I knocked down the saturation of the sky a bit.

Trying to get all that tonal value in one shot and hoping that post processing can fix the over and underexposed areas was most definitely beyond the capabilities of cameras and software 10 yrs ago. That is the piece you may be missing.

While the subject matter is not great, the setting it good for an illustration of when one might use bracketing and how it works.

It's really very simple, and it is a technique I u... (show quote)

BJW

A great discussion on the pros and cons of bracketing. But then there a some of us who favor SOOC (straight out of camera)in order to minimize the time spent in PP. Without denigrating the importance of good post processing, I have found that bracketing to compensate for lighting irregularities gives me a variety of images to choose from which often spares me post processing time.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Bracketing serves two purposes, the first one is to prepare three files (sometimes more) for HDR photography and the other is to make sure that one of the exposures will be correct for the subject. Today most photographers opt for the first option.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Bracketing is just another tool. Like all tools in photography, it has its place. The first thing you have to do is to decide how much contrast you can accept in your composition, or with HDR, what you want the final contrast to be.

wapiti Loc: round rock, texas

tradio wrote:

There is a lot of lost information in the areas that are over-exposed and under exposed. So by using the details in the shadows and highlights, you can blend them together to create an image with high dynamic range or an HDR image.

AZNikon Loc: Mesa, AZ

rgrenaderphoto wrote:

Position yourself inside your house/apartment/whatever where you have a window that faces outside, where the sun has brightly lit the yard. Focus on the window and take a photo. What do you have, a view outside but the interior of the room is dark? Now, take another exposure but use bracketing with + 1 stop. Merge them together in an application that supports HDR. You will see the room and the exterior view exposed correctly.

Thats what bracketing is for.

Well put!

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

kfoo wrote:

I have read some articles on bracketing. They say that when you bracket photos, you underexpose 1 frame and overexpose 1 frame and 1 just right. If you can go to post processing programs and change everything, what good does it do to bracket if you can change every in pos processing? Am I missing something in these articles? I am just starting in photography and am still learning. Thanks in advance.

Bracketing is a good idea especially when still learning. It provides different exposures from which you can choose the one with the best dynamic range for further editing. It provides different exposures from which you can choose for HDR. It provides insurance for when you misjudge the exposure that will get the best results. Sometimes it is a photo you will not be able to take again, and it becomes important to have a version that works, rather than is less than what you wanted to capture.

Bracketing can be as simple or as complex as you choose. The 3-frame bracket is standard, but for a scene with an extremely wide dynamic range, it is often better to take additional frames over and under. This is done manually by moving the exposure dial a couple of clicks above and below the "correct" exposure for additional brighter and darker versions. Of course, as Gene51 pointed out, if you have one of the newer cameras that have a greater capacity to handle dynamic range, you will be fine with the standard 3 frames.

Another use of bracketed photos is to make a composite image, rather than HDR. Done in Photoshop, using layers, this can work fairly well for scenes where there has been some slight movement and the images do not exactly overlap. I have also used it for macro shots where the bracketing is done manually for focus. For instance, a flower where the shallow depth of field causes the petals focused on to be in focus, the others out of focus. Multiple shots with focus on different petals and/or stamens and pistils can then be combined.

Note: When combining images, for the most accurate results, a tripod is required.

Hope this helps!
Susan

Purple Dragon ground cover 1/4" flowers

Lilys

Kuzano

Retired fat guy with a camera wrote:

I absolutely hate bracketing. I hate the time it takes to delete all the repetitive files. You can fix the exposure in post production. It is turned off on both my cameras.
Or you can spend some money, and buy a digital light meter. I bought a used Sekonic 308 s, on ebay for a 100 dollars. Less files and it is deadly accurate.

Simply not true. You cannot increase or decrease the RANGE of exposure in any post processing programs to pick up the extended range of the bracketed photo on both sides of the "right on" exposure. Not even shooting only RAW.

A meter helps, but only on getting a shot at one exposure, perhaps above and below the "best exposure by the camera".

You are trying to use the meter to still only use one shot. Yes, bracketing is a PITA, but depending on your demand for the best picture possible, or best image for your client.

We used bracketing a lot when shooting film, and learned the real value of it. Digital and post processing did not replace fully the use of bracketing for best image range. Most who shot film and bracketed, have not found digital to preclude the benefits of bracketing. One can always improve the image with bracketing, when one knows what he/she is doing. Others don't understand the benefits or are purely lazy and fear organization.

On that note I no longer need top/highest quality for my images being out of the business. My images satisfy me, so I hardly do any bracketing. But anyone who thinks bracketing is a useless process is simply wrong. And a Seconic 308s is not a refined enough meter to replace bracketing. Neither is a Sekonic 758 with all the bells and whistles.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

There are at least three things in life for people who either don't know what they want or can't make a decision.
Medium Coke
The color beige
bracketing.
Just kidding folks.