Auto bracketing - Do you do it?

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I've just watched a YouTube video singing the praises of auto bracketing. ( Exposure).
He does it on every shot. How common is this?
What do you see as pros and cons?
 
Who was the youtuber? Would like to see the video too
 
I dabbled in it, especially with landscapes where the dynamic/contrast range was marked.

Using HDR blending but 'wound back' to avoid the over cooked look so beloved of some HDR image makers.
 
On my Fujifilm cameras I can set a 9 shot bracketed sequence, I often use this for very dynamic range scenes, nigh time urbanscapes, city scenes, etc.

I rarely use it at other times, as often small things move in the scene, rendering any merged image soft, though I appreciate you can take elements of each image and blend them to minimise this.
 
I wont bracket for every shot, but if I am shooting a scene with high dynamic range like a sunrise I might bracket some shots just some I am covered and can HDR merge later should I decide to, but I bracket manually for a single shot. If it is a multi-shot panorama then I will use the in-built bracketing feature.
 
As others have said I use the bracketing function on my camera where the dynamic range is too large(or I think it it too large) to get the what I want in one shot.

Then sometimes I find the camera has coped much better than I thought and I can use one of the images and delete the others.

Dave
 
if you want to set up a series of shots for HDR layering/processing you can use the +/- 1/3 etc et all.. stop idea to get the different exposures.
you have to have a tripod of course
if you use bracketing with hand held...? well better using spot metering as you take a few shots

i dont use it and havent since i tried an HDR composition

the video would be of interest since cameras have this feature and may be useful for something i havent considered
 
if you want to set up a series of shots for HDR layering/processing you can use the +/- 1/3 etc et all.. stop idea to get the different exposures.
you have to have a tripod of course
if you use bracketing with hand held...? well better using spot metering as you take a few shots

i dont use it and havent since i tried an HDR composition

the video would be of interest since cameras have this feature and may be useful for something i havent considered

Video is above now. (y)
 
I only use it occasionally - normally if there's a risk of the highlights being blown.

I always shoot in raw, so there's very rarely any need for it.
 
Sometimes, on a night shot - mostly so I can choose the length of any light trails after the event
 
I will bracket one way or another in any scene where the full dynamic range cannot be captured (I don't use grad filters).

Sometimes I use auto bracketing, sometimes I don't. I use whatever method gets me to having the exposures I need the quickest and easiest.
 
Hardly ever used auto bracket. Sometimes manual brackets for Astro landscapes for the ground. I do find blending can be a pest due to movement and / or fine edges of trees and the like. So normally try to avoid with grad filters if needed.
 
Where required to get full dynamic range - YES. That means too often.

The default auto tool is rubbish in that it only allows you to go specified range and that will be it. You have to review and redo if necessary. This is terribly wasteful. The positive is that from tripod you camera is perfectly still between frames and there will be no conflict of overlap. Misalignment of frames in foreground area will kill the shot.

Manual multi-frame exposure would allow you finer control and limit the waste. Sadly camera moves even a very very tiny bit. 2px may be enough to cause headaches. Auto align can help, but even so you are losing a tiny bit of sharpness there.

The best case scenario is to use external controller like your phone to preview and change settings and use as a remote for shutter.

Finally, Magic Lantern compatible cameras like 5D3 have it almost perfect too with addon software. Just set it to bright exposure and it will do a few shots until no more highlights are detected by app. It's all automated and you have the perfect bracketing set in the first go, unless of course you decide to change anything else.
I'm not sure if any other brand has this feature. They really should.
 
Hardly ever used auto bracket. Sometimes manual brackets for Astro landscapes for the ground. I do find blending can be a pest due to movement and / or fine edges of trees and the like. So normally try to avoid with grad filters if needed.

Trees = manual blending. Edit main frame as a single image, copy settings to the other, match exposures and just combine these layers in PS. This is very quick and simple (if your PS loads quickly that is). Worst case scenario you'll just get a bit more noise on the periphery. Apply heavier NR to dark frames to solve.
 
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Started using auto-bracketing in the days of film (Velvia) on landscapes and i'm still doing it now with my m4/3 kit. To be honest I probably don't need to but it does give you a choice of images with slightly different exposures in case of glitches. It means I do a lot of deleting.....!

For wildlife - no I don't. You need an unlimited burst of frames and bracketing would put a restriction on that.
 
I do for landscapes mainly because I don’t do it very often so don’t have a feel for it but for what I normally do nature / wildlife I don’t just shoot raw there’s enough latitude there if I get it a bit wrong
 
I occasionally manually bracket for landscapes with a high dynamic range, but not very often. My computer already struggles with the small number of images I process, so I think it would grow legs and jump out of the window if I auto bracketed every shot and asked it to download and sort three times as many!
 
Although if you used it all the time, your camera will end up with a higher shutter count.
 
I use it on most of my landscape shots. Lightroom makes fairly light work of blending the files...
 
I used to do this for most landscapes with my Canon 5D2 as the dynamic range was only 11 stops which is not enough for many landscapes. However, I replaced with a 5D4 about 3 years ago and now rarely bracket as the Dynamic range is nearly 14 stops. I still bracket for night photography and in buildings like a church etc. Even when I was using the 5D2 and auto bracketing, I only combined exposures where there was some benefit but easy now with LR as the You Tube presenter suggested.

Dave
 
I used to do it, but never less than 2-stops either way as even 1-stop seemed pointless, now I find the DR of the D750 is so good that as long as the highlights are fine everything else is anyway

What I did find I had in common with the video-guy was shooting several frames at the highest frame rate where birds are flying through and are wanted, the buggers have a knack in having their wings in the 'wrong' position if only shooting one shot

Dave
 
Although if you used it all the time, your camera will end up with a higher shutter count.

Very true but would you rather live with blown highlights or noisy shadows? I'm not comfortable with offering that for customers, even if they don't care much.

I used to do it, but never less than 2-stops either way as even 1-stop seemed pointless,

1 stop is usually pointless, but if 2 stops simply take you too far for an optimal range I have no problems going back.

Trouble is the cameras, at least Canon's use crappy JPEGs to display histogram so you never even know what you are dealing with until you get back home. I really like what ML does and life without it on 5Ds seems like a massive backwards step. I'll have to figure out a way to connect it to android phone and in to LR mobile.
 
I've always wondered why people would choose to bracket manually over using the auto feature. Surely if the base photo is set right then surely 2 (or so ) stops either way is going to be the same whether you do it manually or automatically. In fact, I'd have thought getting the photos out in quick succession would be beneficial.. Less chance of camera shake, change of light and so on..

From you folks who've said they like the extra control, what kind of extra control do you mean? This is a question from a hobbyist who's barely dabbled into hdr or exposure blending so pardon my ignorance.
 
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I'd have thought getting the photos out in quick succession would be beneficial.. Less chance of camera shake, change of light and so on..

True indeed.

I've always wondered why people would choose to bracket manually over using the auto feature. Surely if the base photo is set right then surely 2 (or so ) stops either way is going to be the same whether you do it manually or automatically

1. You might not want to waste shutter clicks or card space, or processing time picking the shots for editing. The latter part is the worst effect for me personally. On many occasions you may clearly only need 2 frames but have to take all 3 automatically.
2. Do you test all three exposures before setting up a bracket? Probably not, but this is ideally what you should do and it is not convenient at all. Anything else is total guesswork. If you are not so lucky your sky will be a bit too dark and will have extra noise in it. But probably you still have some blown highlights out there somewhere which is quite usual shooting sunsets for example. Then the show is likely wasted unless you can clone out. For sunsets you want carefully selected 6-9 stop range to be sure. It is even worse doing real estate shoots and getting that window exposure perfect with auto brackets (nearly impossible guessing first time!).

Auto feature is from 1980s and that is why it sucks so badly.
 
If you determine the middle exposure then automatically have +/- 2 stops then you should cover the DR of the sensor plus 4 stops. If it is critical, you could estimate by using live view and the histogram, you should be able to easily determine to total range you need; this is picky but I know someone who always does that and produces excellent results. To suggest all other methods are pure guess work is insulting. I use experience. Once you understand the DR of you camera and the scene in front of you it is quite straight forward to set the right values. Also I am happy just to use two of the three exposures if that is all that is needed so see no problem there. With more challenging scenes (e.g. inside a building with light coming through windows. I will usually automatically choose 5 shots at 2 stops interval.

Dave
 
If you determine the middle exposure then automatically have +/- 2 stops then you should cover the DR of the sensor plus 4 stops

Technically that's correct, except what exactly does middle exposure even mean? A small very bright patch can throw it to some very unexpected numbers if we go by 1/2 of the brightest exposure.
You may cover it all but perhaps it will be quite suboptimal (+1EV) in key areas.

+4 stops is actually not all that many by the way.

I will usually automatically choose 5 shots at 2 stops interval.

By all means that is probably the only way to get a safe exposure the first time with the antiquated "auto" bracketing. You will likely throw away 2 shots immediately.
Also changing from 3 to 5 and back to 3 on a regular basis is a right PITA.

estimate by using live view and the histogram

Guesstimate. I stress that again. You are looking at dodgy 8 bit over-processed JPEG histogram that is a long way away from your RAW files. You are likely under exposing it by 2/3-1 stop based on that (tip set profile to Faithful and AdobeRGB to bring it ever so slightly closer to truth. Video CLOG2 / REC2020 is what you ideally want). When it's really dark histogram starts to become completely wrong in live view (on Canon).

I also notice Canon histogram doesn't clearly display blow highlights in very small areas that you really might want to preserve. The whole thing is a terrible guesstimate because you start with unreliable data.

Besides on Canon you have to press INFO 4 times every time to get histogram and back to level indicator. You can't have both at the same time. That's super inconvenient. It could only get worse if I have to prepare a written shooting plan at home before setting off.

To suggest all other methods are pure guess work is insulting
experience


See above and try again. That was aimed at me? I couldn't care less in fact.

Also I am happy just to use two of the three exposures if that is all that is needed so see no problem there.

If you are happy with that then fair play. I am no longer happy with at all. Throwing 1/3 or 2/3 is very wasteful and inefficient process, all because we can't get true histogram.


P.S. You may find as a first guesstimate the Canon's HDR MODE from the menus does a pretty reasonable job estimating the bracket range up to +/-3EV; throw away the combined JPEG and keep the RAWs, then expand from their values if necessary. You are still limited to 3EV in 3 shot mode, so may as well just do the single missing frame.


None is this 1980s b******t is necessary with Magic Lantern bracketing implementation. What on earth is stopping camera companies from enabling the obvious?!
 
Rarely. I seem to remember trying it when I first got a D300 and I was high in the Alps with lots of snow around. So I didn't know what to expect from the camera, or how the shots would meter, and I wasn't going to get a chance at re-shooting any time soon. It seemed sensible to play safe. I'd been burned before when I had a D70, which blew highlights rather easily. As it turned out, the D300 was much better in the mountains than the D70 had been, and the metered exposure was generally pretty reliable, with any adjustments usually within the limits of raw tweaking.
 
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Long Lens Photography I did not like your grumpy response. You did not seem to pick up that I use experience. I have been using HDR to cover insufficient sensor DR for many years and do not have any problems with getting the images I want. As for it being wasteful to throw away unwanted exposures, I have plenty of storage in camera and on my PC so no problem. As for my time, I have plenty of that as well. When doing more serious HDR (say in a cathedral) I use my camera controlled by my iPad running Helicon Remote which makes it very easy to select between 3,5,7,9 or more exposures.

Dave
 
Long Lens Photography I did not like your grumpy response. You did not seem to pick up that I use experience. I have been using HDR to cover insufficient sensor DR for many years and do not have any problems with getting the images I want. As for it being wasteful to throw away unwanted exposures, I have plenty of storage in camera and on my PC so no problem. As for my time, I have plenty of that as well. When doing more serious HDR (say in a cathedral) I use my camera controlled by my iPad running Helicon Remote which makes it very easy to select between 3,5,7,9 or more exposures.

Dave

Neither did I... I don't know if your experience involved 100 maximum complexity HDRs per day when time really counts but that's pretty much what I was dealing with until COVID mess came in. I had no time or backup storage space to waste like I was shooting for pleasure, which it isn't regardless. Sometimes you have an hour, period. I have 2TB of client files, and 4TB of personal ones, most of which is wasted exposures. I still haven't found time weed it out. With 5Ds it will now grow exponentially from here so I'm changing the process. There is no need to defend antiquated software methods when better solutions are available and all of us could benefit from it. I suggest we leave it right here because that's like the last thing to get grumpy about right now.
 
One interesting point with regard to this forum, we know very little about each other. Another Forum I am a member of clicking on the name take you to details about the individual. You fill this in yourself and most do indicate their photographic experience, location etc. This can be very helpful when replying to a post knowing whether the individual is an amateur or professional.

Dave
 
This can be very helpful when replying to a post knowing whether the individual is an amateur or professional.

Dave

Amateur or professional means nothing. Experience and output speak volumes.
 
I've just watched a YouTube video singing the praises of auto bracketing. ( Exposure).
He does it on every shot. How common is this?
What do you see as pros and cons?

Sometimes use it for backlit portraits where I want to keep both the sky and the person but don't have my flash to hand. Or high contrast landscapes, and then just go easy on the sliders as I'm not a fan of the overly HDR look.
 
Sometimes use it for backlit portraits where I want to keep both the sky and the person but don't have my flash to hand. Or high contrast landscapes, and then just go easy on the sliders as I'm not a fan of the overly HDR look.

Bloody hell Andy, we agree on something.
I too am not a fan of the cartoonish, unrealistic HDR look. :D
 
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