Bracketing?

Lucky Hack

I know what it is, and I know how to use it, but I'm curious if now that we have the lcd preview on the back of digital cameras whether anyone still uses it? and why?

hoping this message finds you well -Ian

zigzag

I use bracketing when shooting things with large differences between the dark and the light areas. Like sunsets with a dark foreground. If you do this with a tripod, later you can merge the photos together in photoshop.

Also, the LCD on most cameras is a bit limited and won't always tell you everything you need to about exposure, though some with different RGB channel displays for the histogram are nice.

BenA2

Yes, it's still used.
If you're shooting fast (e.g. action), you may not have time to check the histogram between each shot. The problem is even worse if shooting JPEG because you have less latitude to correct exposure in RAW converstion. So, in some cases, yes, you still need to bracket to capture the right exposure.

-Ben

cmason

BenA2 wrote:

If you're shooting fast (e.g. action), you may not have time to check the histogram between each shot. The problem is even worse if shooting JPEG because you have less latitude to correct exposure in RAW converstion. So, in some cases, yes, you still need to bracket to capture the right exposure.

-Ben

Maybe a stupid question: bracketing only is useful with shooting JPEG, right? The things you bracket, like white balance, exposure etc, can all be changed freely with RAW. My camera allows bracketing with JPEG , but not when I have RAW or RAW+ JPEG. I am assuming it is because it is not useful with RAW, but it could be because the camera can not process RAW fast enough to handle bracketing.

BenA2

No, exposure bracketing is still useful when shooting RAW. Remeber, you can still clip highlights or underexpose shadows and that's information you can't get back in a RAW converter. While you have about a one-stop (or maybe more) latitude in RAW, you still want to get the exposure as close as possible to being right.

And by "right" I mean accurate and, in some cases, actually shifted toward overexposure. Some call this "shooting to the right" where you attempt to exposse to get as much data to the right of the histogram as possible without clipping highlights. Then in RAW conversion, you slide exposure down for a balanced conversion. If you do a search on "shooting to the right" either here or on www.luminous-landscape.com you'll find that this puts more of the image data in the higher-density storage space of the RAW image file, producing smoother continuous tone images.

As for WB, you are correct. WB is fully controllable in RAW conversion without adversely impacting the image. Forget about WB bracketing when shooting RAW.

I'm not sure why your camera does not allow bracketing while shooting RAW. That's a significant (but not horrible) limitation. I'm guessing the reason is based on limited write speed. In other words, the camera may not be able to write to your storage media fast enough to store three large RAW images quickly. That's just a guess though. I know that Canon (and Nikon, I think) SLR's allow RAW bracketing.

Hope that helps,
Ben

cmason

BenA2 wrote:

I'm not sure why your camera does not allow bracketing while shooting RAW. That's a significant (but not horrible) limitation. I'm guessing the reason is based on limited write speed. In other words, the camera may not be able to write to your storage media fast enough to store three large RAW images quickly. That's just a guess though. I know that Canon (and Nikon, I think) SLR's allow RAW bracketing.

Hope that helps,
Ben

Well maybe I have it wrong, but pretty sure my XT won't let me do that...perhaps others can confirm...could be to get me to trade up to a 20D..

BenA2

cmason wrote:

Well maybe I have it wrong, but pretty sure my XT won't let me do that...perhaps others can confirm...could be to get me to trade up to a 20D..

I have the XT and I'm 99% sure I have used bracketing in RAW mode. But, your comments are now making me question that. I've never tried RAW +JPEG with bracketing. If someone else doesn't get you an answer today, I'll check tonight and let you know for sure.

Ben

Nikolai

MHO on Bracketing

Lucky Hack wrote:

I know what it is, and I know how to use it, but I'm curious if now that we have the lcd preview on the back of digital cameras whether anyone still uses it? and why?

hoping this message finds you well -Ian

The idea of exposure bracketing as a process of overcoming possible exposure settings mistakes and limited dynamic range (especially for digital cameras) has its merits.
However, even though successfully used by film photographers in the past with their totally manual cameras, its applicability nowadays (at least in its original way) is more than questionable.

Modern cameras with their built-in TTL exposure meters, RAW format, live or instant-after histogram can prevent many of the occurrences where the photo-artists of yore would use bracketing.
Also commonly forgotten is the fact that the most ubiquitous bracketing type (aperture bracketing) is plain *wrong*, since it affects DOF. Correct way to do the bracketing is to bracket shutter speed or flash/light power level, as they bring no side effects to the image itself. However, not many even prosumer level cameras provide such a facility (I mean shutter speed bracketing; flash power bracketing is luckily more common).

Bracketing in its original "aperture" form as a tool to correct settings mistakes (i.e. "better than nothing") can still be useful in cases when shooting RAW is unavailable or undesirable (slow write speed or insufficient media space).

Apart from that situation (no/"bad" RAW), using any kind of bracketing in action shooting in particular seems a bit questionable, for me at least, unless one uses it as a "poor man's" continuous drive solution when a real one is not available. Action shooting implies that the situation changes quickly compared to the shutter lag time. Jumping or running athlete, flying ball or javelin, racing car or bike would cover anywhere from inches to yards between shots, so blending these shots together (which is the purpose of bracketing) later would be a very challenging, if not impossible, task.

Given the fast RAW and plenty of media space, where would one need to use exposure bracketing?

At least one remaining solid use-case for it (again, based on flash power or shutter speed) is to create HDR (high dynamic range) images, which can then be manipulated in PS CS2 (or whatever HDR-aware software one uses).
However, one needs to keep in mind that only 3 shots, even taken with 2EV difference from each other are not enough for a good HDR. It's been recommended to have at least 5 (better 7, even better 9) "bracketed" shots to create a really nice useful HDR image. Of course, you also have to have a rock solid tripod and convenient way to change each shot settings without affecting the camera's position (Example: Canon's Capture software comes with a "remote control center", which allows you to change camera settings remotely, i.e. without a single touch to the camera's body).

Everything said above reflects my personal opinion of the subject. I'm not questioning or critiquing others' practices. The question has been asked and I'm answering it to the best of my current knowledge/experience.

HTH

BenA2

Hi Nik,

First of all, I'll concede that the use of exposure bracketing in RAW is less effective than my comments could lead one to believe, especialy because most people (well, OK, at least me and one other person I know) tend to bracket within a +/-1 stop range, which is the exposure latitude offered by RAW conversion.

Second, I should not have used the word "action" since it typically implies sports. What was in my mind was something more like candid, street, or photojournalism shooting where things are changing more on the order of a couple of seconds rather than a split second.

Your point is well taken and I agree. When shooting RAW, it's tough to make a case for exposure bracketing.

Regards,
Ben

Nikolai

Ben,
Glad to hear we're on the same page.

Essentially, my current approach is to shoot RAW and reserve shutter speed or lighting power bracketing for the "magic hour" (shutter), interior (light power) and other similar cases that are calling for the high dynamic range and not changing at a split-second pace (excluding the moment of THE sunrise/sunset, which only lasts a second or two:-)

Cheers!

Lucky Hack

zigzag wrote:

I use bracketing when shooting things with large differences between the dark and the light areas. Like sunsets with a dark foreground. If you do this with a tripod, later you can merge the photos together in photoshop.

Also, the LCD on most cameras is a bit limited and won't always tell you everything you need to about exposure, though some with different RGB channel displays for the histogram are nice.

Thanks Zigzag...

Lucky Hack

BenA2 wrote:

If you're shooting fast (e.g. action), you may not have time to check the histogram between each shot. The problem is even worse if shooting JPEG because you have less latitude to correct exposure in RAW converstion. So, in some cases, yes, you still need to bracket to capture the right exposure.

-Ben

Thanks Ben.

Lucky Hack

Nikolai wrote:

The idea of exposure bracketing as a process of overcoming possible exposure settings mistakes and limited dynamic range (especially for digital cameras) has its merits.
However, even though successfully used by film photographers in the past with their totally manual cameras, its applicability nowadays (at least in its original way) is more than questionable.

Modern cameras with their built-in TTL exposure meters, RAW format, live or instant-after histogram can prevent many of the occurrences where the photo-artists of yore would use bracketing.
Also commonly forgotten is the fact that the most ubiquitous bracketing type (aperture bracketing) is plain *wrong*, since it affects DOF. Correct way to do the bracketing is to bracket shutter speed or flash/light power level, as they bring no side effects to the image itself. However, not many even prosumer level cameras provide such a facility (I mean shutter speed bracketing; flash power bracketing is luckily more common).

Bracketing in its original "aperture" form as a tool to correct settings mistakes (i.e. "better than nothing") can still be useful in cases when shooting RAW is unavailable or undesirable (slow write speed or insufficient media space).

Apart from that situation (no/"bad" RAW), using any kind of bracketing in action shooting in particular seems a bit questionable, for me at least, unless one uses it as a "poor man's" continuous drive solution when a real one is not available. Action shooting implies that the situation changes quickly compared to the shutter lag time. Jumping or running athlete, flying ball or javelin, racing car or bike would cover anywhere from inches to yards between shots, so blending these shots together (which is the purpose of bracketing) later would be a very challenging, if not impossible, task.

Given the fast RAW and plenty of media space, where would one need to use exposure bracketing?

At least one remaining solid use-case for it (again, based on flash power or shutter speed) is to create HDR (high dynamic range) images, which can then be manipulated in PS CS2 (or whatever HDR-aware software one uses).
However, one needs to keep in mind that only 3 shots, even taken with 2EV difference from each other are not enough for a good HDR. It's been recommended to have at least 5 (better 7, even better 9) "bracketed" shots to create a really nice useful HDR image. Of course, you also have to have a rock solid tripod and convenient way to change each shot settings without affecting the camera's position (Example: Canon's Capture software comes with a "remote control center", which allows you to change camera settings remotely, i.e. without a single touch to the camera's body).

Everything said above reflects my personal opinion of the subject. I'm not questioning or critiquing others' practices. The question has been asked and I'm answering it to the best of my current knowledge/experience.

HTH

Thanks for the lesson, looks like I'm gonna have to find a way to upgrade to CS2!

BenA2

It can

cmason wrote:

Well maybe I have it wrong, but pretty sure my XT won't let me do that...perhaps others can confirm...could be to get me to trade up to a 20D..

Sorry, I said I'd get back to you on this the other day and I flaked... So, just in case you haven't already figured it out, I did confirm the XT can exposure bracket in RAW and RAW +JPEG mode.