bbradford Loc: Wake Forest NC

What would you use for steps on exposure bracketing. Would you use 1/3 , 1/2, 3/4, or 1 full step?. How many pics would you use? 3, 4, 5 ? Thanks all

Schwabo Loc: Florida

If I use bracketing, I usually use 1/2 on 3 pictures. Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

Although the camera will do HDR, I prefer to use three or five shots set at 1 to 2 - or + EV. I set the shutter for Continuous High, then rattle off those 3 or 5 shots in rapid succession. Takes only 1/2 sec to rattle off 5 shots.
Must be in Manual or Aperture Priority mode. Practice with 3 shots at plus or minus 2 EV, and adjust accordingly.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I (1) know my equipment extremely well. (2) Meter carefully and make the correct exposure. That's it.
--Bob

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

If you shoot raw you can afford to bracket wider exposures, in other words, at least +1 because you can recover more from the original exposure.

User ID

All of the above.

Decisions will narrow down with some experimentation and experience.

For the time being, it doesn’t matter to you what choices experienced users are making, but you may get a lotta useless replies from the Internet Experts, telling you how they do it.

For your initial learning experiences always set the smallest increments and the largest number of frames. That will give you the most variety to study. Your studies will tell you how to scale back the excesses of your verrrry wide ranging earliest experimentation.

Shoot sunny days and night scenes for their challenging dynamic range. Cloudy days and flatly lit typical fluorescent-lit interiors aren’t really challenging.

Have fun.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Not since I used Slide Film. With Slide Film, exposure was arguably the most critical part of taking pictures because Slide Film had an impossibly narrow latitude. If you were off by more than half-a-stop, forgettaboutit. That slide was ruined.
Shoot RAW. Don't bracket. Just point the metering cells at what is important to you and shoot RAW. You are going to do PP work, anyway.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

Bingo.

bbradford Loc: Wake Forest NC

Great answer. Thanks

johngault007 Loc: Florida Panhandle

Like mentioned above....experiment and practice, practice, practice!

I don't have a set way of bracketing exposures so it can vary each time.

bleirer

I think it depends on the camera and what you are shooting and whether you will be compositing them. Something tricky in jpeg shoot a wider range with smaller steps. I'd say plus and minus 1/2, 1, 1 1/2 you can always delete them. For raw maybe plus and minus 1 and 2.

LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

I concur.

I seldom to never bracket.

In the days of center weighted and Han held meters it was a great tool.

With modern matrix metering it’s almost never off more than a half stop.

If it is, that’s what a spot meter is for.

To be fair, I know a number of experienced photographers who bracket a lot ... but I thinks it’s habit more than anything.

As long as you aren’t printing everything as it was with film their is no real downside to bracketing that I know of other than loading up a card faster.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

It depends on why I am bracketing. For a long time, I collected 7 exposures, as metered and three on each side at one stop intervals, no matter what my purpose. Now, I may bracket only on one side or the other, still usually at one stop intervals. I would suggest that you take a good number on each side of the metered exposure, but then pay attention to which one(s) you are using, then let that knowledge guide what you do. In the meantime, make sure how your bracketing control works. Mine go both +&- if I turn it one way, and alternate between all + and all - if I turn it the other way. Knowing your options can help with your choices.

Rab-Eye Loc: Indiana

I only use bracketing for experiments to better learn the dynamic range of a camera. I want to know how much I can ETTR for high contrast scenes without blowing the highlights.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

I've done most of my bracketing using +2,0,-2 and discarding the +2 exposure. After some experimenting I came to the conclusion that unless the shadows are in need of a LOT of lifting and are likely to be noisy, the merge is better off without the bright exposure. It can soften the merge contrast-wise and it's also likely to be the least sharp exposure because it'll have the slowest shutter speed. The loss of contrast will be most obvious in situations where glare or bright haze are present. In that scenario the best approach is to shoot on the dark side and brighten in PP.

I occasionally add +0.3 or +0.7 exposure compensation if I think the shadows may need lifting in PP. If the scene has an extreme dynamic range you can use negative EC to make sure the highlights are protected (sometimes -2 isn't enough on its own), or if your camera allows, use a range bigger than +2,0,-2.

Even if the dynamic range is low (e.g. misty shots), bracketing helps because it makes it easier to get details and colour out of flat skies or weak, misty backgrounds. In general a merge file will be easier to process because it will take more pushing and pulling in PP than a single exposure.

In general, bracketing will help to keep noise low because the merging has a cancelling effect on the noise (which is random and therefore different between shots), but the best option (where possible) is to shoot at base ISO.

Anti-ghosting during the merge process can help with large movements but the software may be unable to differentiate when the movement between exposures is slight (any small subject movement between exposures such as wind-blown vegetation). Where anti-ghosting is concerned, some types of movement can be tolerated. For example I usually find that waves on water or splashes aren't worth trying to eliminate during the merge.