Is taking 2 exposures the same as changing exposure in RAW

[Cris_L]

So I understand that to get the sky and land both looking good I may need to take 2 exposures. but what i'm wondering is if this can be done to the same effect by copying your raw file and reducing the exposure on one for the sky then blending them in elements?

 

[canon_togger]

To a point you could do that, but if the sky is very blown then you cant bring the detail back even by reducing the exposure in camera raw.
Hence why it makes more sense to expose for the sky in one and then for the land in the other. There should then be the detail you need for everything.

 

[Cris_L]

Thank you, so i guess in taking two shots the camera is recording details that have been lost in an overexposed sky.

 

[canon_togger]

Thank you, so i guess in taking two shots the camera is recording details that have been lost in an overexposed sky.

Yes if you expose for the sky then it will record the detail, whilst the land may be too dark/black.

 

[redhed17]

You can get some detail back from a slightly overexposed area in a RAW file, but the could be colour problems with big changes. Even better if you have a version ACR which has the recovery slider which will just try to recover highlights, rather than darkening the whole image with the Exposure slider, you're still limited to the actual amount of information recorded.

You can also brighten using the Exposure slider, but large changes can introduce noise into the image, but you can get a surprising amount of information from dark underexposed areas.

Obviously better to take a couple of bracketed exposures in difficult situations, than to rely on fixing it all in one exposure, but sometimes that is not possible. There are limits to what you can successfully get away with though.

 

[alexam]

So I understand that to get the sky and land both looking good I may need to take 2 exposures. but what i'm wondering is if this can be done to the same effect by copying your raw file and reducing the exposure on one for the sky then blending them in elements?

If you are loosing the foreground due to the sky being too bright, I believe that a graduated ND filter may help?

Malcolm

 

[vaizki]

Every digital camera has a dynamic range which defines the range of brightness values that it can capture. If you have a dark landscape with a bright sky, it's going to be a too wide range for your camera, so you have to choose (via aperture and exposure time) whether you keep the hues in the sky (letting the landscape sink into black) or in the landscape (letting the sky blow out to pure white).

By taking multiple exposures and blending them in post processing, you are creating a high dynamic range (HDR) image, in other words getting more dynamic range artificially than your camera's sensor is capable of. If you use a graduated ND filter, you are basically pulling the sky's brightness down to a level where your sensor can capture it together with the landscape and remain in the dynamic range that can be recorded.

So no, there's no shortcut.. Waiting for those HDR cameras myself