I have a dumb question.

shaylou

shaylou

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Shayne
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I was wondering how to tell what shots are a group after bracketing. In other words I have a lot of bracketed shots that are very close to being the same composition, so close I can't tell them apart. I used more than one setting depending on the on how many shots I thought I may need in order to get a good hdr shot so counting them does me no good. I'm using lightroom 4. Is there an easy way to tell this or do you do something as or before you take a bracketed shot. Thanks for your help on this clueless question.
 
Hi Shayne, well I would say start with the first shot and count forward if you only had three shots in each sequence, I assume you whent underexposed normal overexposed. Did you bracket them on the camera on auto or did you asdjust each shot seperately. If I have read this wrong then I dont know what to suggest other than checking the time at which they were all taken.
 
I guess depending on what order you have your bracketed photos set to you can find out from the photos data like 0 - +

Or how about as a quick way of looking at them in between your bracketed shots you take a shot with the lens cap on so you know what is what?
 
Does it not tell you / show in the properties in LR4, the different exposure settings ?

Are you in RAW or JPEG ?

If you're shooting in Canon, I seem to remember it normal, under and over exposed are the sequence of a bracket of 3 shots. Are you shooting 3 or more ?

You also say its difficult to tell them apart, what have you got the exposure difference to ?
 
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I was about halfway through when I thought about taking a quick in-between shot of my hand but for some reason I didn't do it. I thought there must be some indicator on the file/camera/software or something.

As far as counting the shots go I can't because I didn't bracket the same amount of shots for each subject. Some situations had a better range than others so there was no need for me to take more than 3 shots but others needed as many as possible.

Is it just me or does this whole thing seem a little humorous. :/
 
andyred said:
Does it not tell you / show in the properties in LR4, the different exposure settings ?

Are you in RAW or JPEG ?

If you're shooting in Canon, I seem to remember it normal, under and over exposed are the sequence of a bracket of 3 shots. Are you shooting 3 or more ?

You also say its difficult to tell them apart, what have you got the exposure difference to ?
Click to expand...

I did three shot for some but not for all and not consistent.

To make matters even more confusing I over/under exposed the bracketing starting point on many. For instance I would center the bracketing point 1/4 stop under exposed and so it would bracket from there. I think this kills the idea of finding zero as a starting point of the bracketed shot.

The idea of taking a blacked out shot in-between is sure sounding good about now...
 
Isn't it possible to put all the photos on the computer then count back three at a time from the last photo taken? just a thought as I don't do bracketing.

Realspeed
 
there are ways of counting photos and the time they were taken by using Kuso exif view. However it would be a very long and tedious way of doing things .

If you wanted to take that route here is a link to Kuso for you

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Digital-Photo-Tools/KUSO-Exif-Viewer.shtml.

When downloaded right click over photo and you should get something like this

Standard Information
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D300
Software: Ver.1.10
ImageSize: 2848x4288
ComponentsConfiguration: Y, Cb, Cr, -
CreateDate: 2011:11:16 15:32:15
ModifyDate: 2011:11:16 15:32:15
DateTimeOriginal: 2011:11:16 15:32:15
ExposureTime: 1/250"
Aperture: F8.0
MaxAperture: F3.5
DepthOfFocus: 15.31 m (1.64 - 16.95)
CircleOfConfusion: 0.020 mm


Just a small section of what data kuso does, I have not put all on here just the relevant part hopefully (taken from one of my photos as an example).

Don't know if thats any help? works on unedited photos only for full data

Realspeed
 
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Lightroom can group photos together based on the time period in which the shots were taken, so if you were using autobracketing I imagine a group would all appear within the same second or two. Go into Library grid view and then click Photo - Stacking - Auto Stack by Capture Time - and then adjust the grouping period to suit needs. It might at least get some of your groups organised together, if not all of them. It depends on how rapidly (or not) you were shooting.
 
Have a go and save being dragged down the shops to spend your money.:lol::lol::lol:

Realspeed
 
I think the lesson here is to slow down a little, If you're bracketing exposures and taking pictures so similar in composition that they're difficult to tell apart - you're taking far too many pictures IMO.

It's too easy for you shooting digital to 'spray and pray' which is effectively what you're doing here. Pretend you're shooting film and every click is costing you money. By shooting so much, you're then tying yourself to too many hours at the computer wading through pictures you're just going to dump. This time would be better spent shooting some more.

To become better at the craft you need to start at the beginning - analyse the scene, choose your vantage point, focal length and then camera settings. Then shoot - (bracketing is for insurance if you're unsure of settings*).

*I've just realised you're playing with HDR - so the bracketing is for that - everything else stands
 
You had a good suggestion of you own in your second post. Take a picture of something completely different between each set.
 
scottishguy said:
You had a good suggestion of you own in your second post. Take a picture of something completely different between each set.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest, just take a pic of your lens cap or something.
I know it's been mentioned, LR4 can separate pics on date and time, but it may not help if you don't know when you took them...
 
Phil V said:
I think the lesson here is to slow down a little, If you're bracketing exposures and taking pictures so similar in composition that they're difficult to tell apart - you're taking far too many pictures IMO.

It's too easy for you shooting digital to 'spray and pray' which is effectively what you're doing here. Pretend you're shooting film and every click is costing you money. By shooting so much, you're then tying yourself to too many hours at the computer wading through pictures you're just going to dump. This time would be better spent shooting some more.

To become better at the craft you need to start at the beginning - analyse the scene, choose your vantage point, focal length and then camera settings. Then shoot - (bracketing is for insurance if you're unsure of settings*).

*I've just realised you're playing with HDR - so the bracketing is for that - everything else stands
Click to expand...

After a good nights sleep and time to think about it I came up with the same conclusion. Slowing down a bit will resolve a lot of the problem I have encountered.

In my own defence I must say that I ended up with a lot of bracketed shots because I was forced to start over in many cases (unwanted objects entering the seen) but I have not figured out a way to stop midstream. As far as I could tell there is no way to cancel a bracket once you started so the only option is to pull the trigger until its done.

Thanks Phil, your input is always appreciated and extremely accurate.
 
If you have the Canon software installed I think bracketed shots shows as 3 squares in the top corner of the thumbnail
 
There's not really any substitute for making notes either with a notepad, on your mobile phone or using a voice recorder or voice recorder app
 
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