Bracketing

I hope people from Canon monitor this forum:

You should put "spot metering" on your DSLRs!!! Canon, can you hear me?

Ansel had a point. If you were spending who knows how much for every plate of film, then you would also want to avoid bracketing shots.

In addition, if you have a handheld light meter and know how too use it, then with a high latitude film (B&W tends to be high latitude), you should only need one exposure.

I don't think any of that is really relevant to digital SLR usage.

On the 10D for instance it is a couple of buttons presses to get into auto bracket mode. Another couple of seconds to take three shots at different exposures. That is it and has cost you nothing, not in film costs nor in time.

If you relying on the internal meter and have a difficult to expose for scene (e.g. sunset, landscape) then there is nothing wrong with bracketing shots, either manually or with auto bracket.

Add to that that a scence as described above may have a large latitude, i.e. way outside what the sensor can actually capture in a single exposure, and it becomes obvious that bracketing *is* the only way to capture the whole scene.

I will quite often set the camera to auto bracket, usually by 1.5 stops either side, set up on a tripod with cable release. Get a good mid tone exposure reading and set the camera for that reading.

Then click, click, click, I have three exposures of the same scene (ok, 0.33 seconds apart) and then I can combine them in Photoshop later to give me the shot I want.

The benefit is that the shadows have a lot more detail (taken from the overexposed (+1.5) shot and the highlights have more detail and less blow outs (taken from the underexposed (-1.5) shot). With the midtones taken from the normal shot everything is dandy and you get the dynamic range I wanted. It is fairly easy then to adjust the individual layers to get a natural looking shot.

Cheers

Ian

Just a thought here....

Bracketing (as I understand it) involves taking 3 or more shots at slightly different exposure levels, say 'normal', 1/2 a stop under, and 1/2 a stop over. You then 'pick the one that is closest to the effect you wanted.

Now, if you shoot a single photograph in RAW mode, can you not adjust the exposure up or down in the post-processing stage, and achieve the same effect, but only taking up a single 'frame' on your memory card?

Yes and no. Yes, RAW mode does allow for a little more exposure latitude, and 1/2 stop isn't unreasonable.

No, there's a cost when you adjust exposure in RAW, typically in the shadow areas in the form of noise.

Think of changing exposure in RAW conversion as boosting the pixel values to a new value. Say a pixel at 128 is now 135. The problem is that your increasing the values of the noise as well. You're better off having the ligtht from the scene set the pixel value at 135 to start with.

Again, yes and no. If you pick a good photo, why bother. If not, you may do the blending as discussed in "The Luminous Landscape":
http://www.luminous-landscape.com …ls/digital-blending.shtml

Or you may buy from Fredmiranda a Photoshop plugin (I haven't got it myself though):
http://www.fredmiranda​.com/shopping/DRI

I don't do much bracketing by the way.

Trick question...

What exposure should Ansel Adams have calculated for the moon, the brightest part of the pic, assuming f-16 and ISO (actually, at that time, ASA) of 50?

In his book "Examples" he explained how he determined the exposure for the Moon (I assume you mean the "Moonrise" picture). I don't remember the details.

I'm game. . .

The moon is illuminated by the sun and is visible day or night. On a sunny day, the moon is near Zone V. Applying the "Sunny16 rule" (exposure = 1/16, 1/ASA sec for correct exposure on a sunny day) and moving the moon to Zone IX as the brightest object:

Moon in Zone V: exposure = 1/ASA = 1/50 sec
Moon in Zone IX: exposure = 1/2 sec (about)

So expose at f/16 and 1/2 sec to give a black sky and very bright moon.

And of course ... bracket! (f/16 @ 1 sec, 1/2 sec, 1/4 sec). Maybe one of the shots would show the moon surface with some detail.


Did I get tricked .

Trick question...

Maderito, you got it! Even after I'd taught the "Sunny16 rule", most people would think "night" instead of asking themselves where the light on the subject was coming from. (Very relevant if the subject of a portrait is standing next to a red or blue sunlit wall - interesting colors!)

Maybe I shouldn't have said "Trick question"?
Msvadi, I did warn you...
;-D

I missed the trick part

msvadi wrote:
I hope people from Canon monitor this forum:

You should put "spot metering" on your DSLRs!!! Canon, can you hear me?

1D, 1Ds and 1D Mark II has it.

The dilemma is that with digital era many amateurs have advanced fast to "very advanced amateurs" (meaning that they are practically pro level in knowledge and habits without earning their living with it) but they can only afford amateur/semipro level cameras which Canon must have branded for average amateurs who do not really need spot metering and 1/3 DoF focusing.

Bracketing with film.

True. Relating to transparency film, there are (were?) other valid reasons for bracketing:
1. I once worked with a stereotypical German photographer. Verrrry precise in his calculations. He came back from a 2-day shoot with 3 rolls of 36. Unfortunately, on the trip out, something glitched the diaphragm on his primary lens & it was stuck on wide open. The client was not amused, & who could disagree with him? After all costs for me, transportation, lodging (except for the time I billed $12.00 total for TWO nights in the "Hotel"!), etc are added up, film is the smallest consideration. So I used it - typically 60+ rolls of 36 a day. (I'll put a typical "workflow" at the bottom.)

2. Bracketing will produce "The" correct exposure.
3. Bracketing gives extra close exposures that fit nicely into your Sample files.
4. Bracketing gives extra close exposures that the art directors & clients can fingerprint & scratch.
5. Bracketing gives extra close exposures when the inevitable dust speck embeds itself onto the "money Shot".
6. Bracketing allows one situation to be spread out over several rolls. See "workflow" for why this is important.

Workflow:
Before you go, get all the film for that job in the same batch number, hopefully from the same vendor. We had freezers filled with it. (Pro films were 'aged' to be at their peak right now!). Shoot & process one roll in each body to be sure everything's OK before you go. When you get there, check everything out.

At the location:
Situation 1: First primary subject - seven stop bracket using f-stops. First variation on the primary subject - 5-stop bracket using shutter speeds. Next variation - 5-stop bracket using another body. (OK, so I'm insecure, but I've seen it all happen. How about the time in Italy when the town photo processor was asked to make 8X10" contact sheets of B&W film we'd shot over the weekend to identify locations we'd be using that week? He used his lovely deckel edge trimmer to cut out every shot &gave us 105 1" X 1-1/2" prints... without edge numbers.)
Watching the ADs try to assemble the jigsaw puzzle was a "trip" in itself.

Situation 2: Second primary subject - repeat as above. Maybe drop down to 3-stop brackets if I shoot a lot of variations & my level of confidence that I've got it is up.

After the shoot:
NEVER ship more than 20% of the film out in one batch.
NEVER process more than 20% of the film in one batch.
NEVER process more than ½ the rolls of a variation in one batch.

Bottom line, bracketing was just carrying CYA to it's logical conclusion; the client doesn't care that "the dog ate your pics". If it's even slightly under your control, then you had better have controlled it! Now, with histograms, a Gig of mem cards, & back-up film SLRs, things can be more relaxed. Sigh!

Edit: We also shot 8X10" transparency sheet film in brackets: 2 "Normal" exposures & +1/-1 & +2/-2 stops.
One of the "Normal" exposures would be processed first. Then the rest would be push/pull processed based on the "Normal" result. We'd get some nice contrast & color balance variations that the ad guys loved.

Sometimes we'd shoot several frames of small format on the start of a roll to cut off (Clips) to check developing time before the rest of the roll, or the rest of the job was processed.

Oh, Msvadi, I just visited your site - some very nice stuff!

Thank you very much, Frank.

Thanks for a response, Pekka
Oh, I wish I could afford any of 1D series cameras. Not going to happen

Pekka wrote:

msvadi wrote:
I hope people from Canon monitor this forum:

You should put "spot metering" on your DSLRs!!! Canon, can you hear me?

1D, 1Ds and 1D Mark II has it.

The dilemma is that with digital era many amateurs have advanced fast to "very advanced amateurs" (meaning that they are practically pro level in knowledge and habits without earning their living with it) but they can only afford amateur/semipro level cameras which Canon must have branded for average amateurs who do not really need spot metering and 1/3 DoF focusing.

msvadi wrote:
Thanks for a response, Pekka
Oh, I wish I could afford any of 1D series cameras. Not going to happen

Pekka wrote:

msvadi wrote:
I hope people from Canon monitor this forum:

You should put "spot metering" on your DSLRs!!! Canon, can you hear me?

1D, 1Ds and 1D Mark II has it.

The dilemma is that with digital era many amateurs have advanced fast to "very advanced amateurs" (meaning that they are practically pro level in knowledge and habits without earning their living with it) but they can only afford amateur/semipro level cameras which Canon must have branded for average amateurs who do not really need spot metering and 1/3 DoF focusing.

I have to admit looking seriously at the D70 as well.