First of all, congratulations @salza for her winning entry in CSC 16!
Sally has asked me to host the next challenge and wanted to learn about bracketing.
Do some of the camera settings intimidate you? Do you want to learn how to develop your photography skills and learn how to use your camera effectively without always going back to the “auto” function? These challenges are for you!
I'm am so excited to host this weeks camera settings challenge! Thank you, Sally, for selecting me! I am very honored!
This week’s challenge is: Exposure Bracketing!
What is Exposure Bracketing? Exposure Bracketing is when you set your camera to take 3 (or more) photos of the same scene. For the sake of this challenge, lets stick to 3. When using Exposure Bracketing, your camera will take 3 shots simultaneously of the same scene - one with standard exposure, one overexposed and one underexposed.
Why use Exposure Bracketing? There are 2 primary reasons for shooting 3 images of the same scene. One is for when lighting conditions make it difficult to meter. The other is for HDR photography. HDR is High Dynamic Range. It allows the stitching/layering of multiple photos of varying exposures to bring out the detail in both dark and light areas that are lost when using a single dynamic. With the former, Exposure Bracketing is very useful when you don't have a great deal of time to mess with camera settings and you want to make sure you get at least one image with an exposure you like and can work with. With the latter, it allows you to use creative license and create more artistic images (or go natural but bring out details you lose by using a single exposure).
The primary objective of THIS challenge is not going to be the HDR aspect, since that is purely post processing and not a setting of the camera. The primary objective is going to be to figure out how to get your model of dSLR to do auto exposure bracketing and get 3 shots - one standard exposure (what either you or your camera thinks are the right settingss) and one overexposed and one underexposed. You don't want the underexposed too dark or the overexposed too bright so this will take experimentation. The best way to figure out how to set your camera up for bracketing (its the AEB in your menu) is to either consult your manual, or google "how to set up my [camera make & model] for auto exposure bracketing".
If you want to delve into HDR while doing this challenge (I recommend it because its kinda like a bucket list item for a lot of people and can be a lot of fun), I recommend Photomatix software. There is a free trial which will put a watermark in 3 places on your final image. There is a free an easy to use HDR software I recently learned about. I have not tried it personally, but its supposed to be even easier to use than Photomatix - and its FREE. A link for it is here: http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/
Experienced photographers who are knowledgeable in this particular setting are encouraged to offer “kind and constructive” suggestions on the posted entries. Those entering this challenge want to learn and improve.
Here are a few examples of what can be accomplished with AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) from my own project:
(which is my most popular image of my project to date with over 70 faves)
This challenge starts today (lasts 10 days - goal to start on a Thur, Fri, or Sat), 11/29/12 6:30pm Central Standard Time (00:36:12 2012-11-30 Zulu time http://www.zulutime.net). All photos must be taken during these dates to be considered. Enter as many as you would like- the idea is to practice & learn. TAG YOUR PHOTOS CSC-17 AND post your pictures in this thread to receive feedback from other experienced photographers specific to this challenge. You'll want to create a collage of your 3 images. Its easy to do with Picmonkey (and free).
Voting will take place , 12/10 (and remain open 24 hours) and the winner will be announced 12/12. The winner of the challenge will select an experienced photographer to host a new challenge. It is the winner’s option on who they want to host the next challenge; it may be someone they follow whose work they admire, or someone who is active offering suggestions on previous CSC challenges. The winner may also select an experienced photographer for the list of photographers who have agreed to host future challenges as another option. Here is the link to that list: http://365project.org/myhrhelper/365/2011-12-12
Expect to receive constructive suggests on how to improve your skills.
How to post your photo on this link:
1) Go to your page that has the photo you wish to post.
2) Copy the “share” code in the bottom right section of that page.
3) Return to this thread and paste the code under comments
I highly recommend using a tripod for this challenge! If your shutter speed is going to be fast enough and you can stay VERY steady, it IS possible to do this handheld, but a tripod would be ideal.
Oh, I've never even heard of this setting. Anytime I've attempted HDR I just metered the three shots myself, so AED sounds handy. I'm definitely going to try out that website, too - thanks so much, Jeff!
@jsw0109 Jeff, thanks so much for hosting this! Much appreciated. Your explaination of bracketing makes it sound doable. Will definitely give it a go. Your example shots are stunning and I love the one of the barn!
My camera doesn't do bracketing seriously thinking it's about time for an upgrade). So, I will wait this one out, but thanks for letting me know about the new challenge. I'll pick it up again with the next one.
I looked at Picturenaut and it is seems interesting. I may use for this challenge to see if I like it. I usually let my camera do HDR itself, but I will try it the old fashioned way.
Here's my first attempt at this. Three shots, 1/20th, 1/25th and 1/30th of a second exposure of the mess on my desk. In the past, when I've used Photomatix, I've just created three different exposures off of one shot.
I'll be trying this again with an outdoor shot this weekend I believe.
@debrac You can still do this is theory without the braceting option. Either take the same shot using three different ISO levels (100, 200 and 400) or you could take three shots with three different exposure times. Using TV mode dial in three different exposure limits. Not strickly sticking with the rules but you would get similar results.
I don't believe I have bracketing on the Nikon d3100, but as luck would have it I have my fathers d7000 for a little while so I may give this a try. @jsw0109 Will need to find some good scenery. Question: I know my d3100 has the ability in camera to merge 2 images. I don't know about the d7000 if it can do 3 or more or not (will have to check) otherwise do think I can use merge in my PSE10 to make one image? I am new to this.
I don't think I've entered a camera settings challenge before, but this is an enticing one. Three image HDR taken this afternoon (the exif got lost along the way as usual):
All exposures at f8.0 : 1 second, 1/5 and 1/25, ISO 80. Processed with Luminance 2.2.1 and tonemapped using the Mantiuk '06 operator on fairly conservative settings. More to come.
OK here are the pics. Now how do I get to HDR? Jeff I went to down load the free site and I know I don't want the german one, but I don't know if I want 32 or 64 bit. I have a feeling you might want to check out the site so we can ask our questions. :)
Now that I have a tripod I'm going to have a go at this. I've read up on it but my question is, how do I decide the amount of bracketing I want? What is the difference in end result between, for example, +/- .5 and +/- 2? Do you get a certain effect from having it slight or extreme once you've put them together?
I am definitely learning how to use my camera, in regards to exposure settings. My bridge camera does not have f stops. It has value settings instead. This collage shows my attempt to overexposure, regularly expose and underexpose a Christmas ornament. I did NOT do any out of the camera processing of the photos, because I wanted to study the impact of what I did with the camera exposure settings.
I've really been enjoying playing with AEB in my D300 so I can help out as well. Don't forget that you can use any of the "big 3" (ISO, Shutter speed, aperture) to get the different exposures. I have my D300 set to different shutter speeds when I do AEB for HDR. @tulipgirl - Alicia it almost doesn't matter what stop range you choose. It will depend somewhat on the lighting conditions. What you want is three (for the purposes of this challenge) images. The underexposed one will have the histogram mostly to the left and almost touching the left edge of the box. The overexposed one will have the histogram to the right and almost touching the right edge of the box. And the middle exposed one will have the histogram more centered. A little help on understanding histograms - http://digital-photography-school.com/understanding-histograms
@debrac as @brav mentioned, you can do the HDR aspect of this the way he explained... if HDR is something you're interested in, go ahead and have a go at it.
@aurorajane landscapes are generally good ideas for starting out. My rule of thumb is, if I can't get all of what I want lit up because of the lighting (some things come out dark and/or silhouettes) without overexposing the part of the subject that is lit well, I do AEB. Or, if the only way to draw out the detail you can see with the naked eye is to go HDR (like with The Altar above) I'll do it.
@tulipgirl it really depends on the lighting. If there are shadows you don't want, +/-2 is generally the way to go, but in merging the images, you have to play with it because the default might leave the dark areas in.
@daisy that's the way to go really... play with the exposure settings to see what results you get when you do different things and then play with the post processing if you're interested in trying that out.
@tigerdreamer Karen, I believe it depends on your computer. Look at the properties on My Computer (Windows computer) and it should tell you what bit your operating system is
@jsw0109 I do like Luminance, which is just as well since as far as I know it's the only HDR programme available for Linux. Can't really comment on the Windows and Mac ports, but this version is rock solid stable and provides plenty of options. It's worth noting that if you want to use the auto-align feature the relevant module from the Hugin panorama stitcher needs to be installed - may as well install the whole thing though since it's so good. It's all free, so a good way to dip one's toe in the water.
Here's another one, same basic method as last time but with closer bracketing and in mono. I did the black and white conversion afterwards using Gimp because the sky and foreground needed different treatments, but it's entirely practicable to do it with Luminance by minimising the saturation level.
Here's my attempt. I used a +1/-1 exposure bracketing, created the HDR images using Luminance, and then layered them in PSE10. I've only tried this once before and had no luck. I'm much happier with this attempt but would love any critiques or pointers!!
@tigerdreamer the HDR part of this challenge is not required, it is optional. The primary objective is to learn how to use AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing). For that, you just have to be able to show your 3 shots (some cameras allow up to 7 shots, but for this challenge I want people to only use 3 since more affordable dSLR cameras tend to only allow 3)
Here is my first attempt with this setting. I am going to also try to convert it to an HDR with the free software you mentioned. I'll post that one if it works.
I used Gimp to merge. They have a "export" to JPG that you have to use.
I have to play with this product more it is very confusing.
@jsw0109 Jeff or anyone who can answer.
HELP - that software doesn't save it to a Jpeg or bitmap it saves it as something else that my computer doesn't know how to read.
Hi Jeff, have found the setting, but am given the option of choosing from AE .3 to AE 2.0. Is a just a matter of trying them all? Am I guessing correctly that the larger the number, the greater the difference in the photos?
@jsw0109 I downloaded it in 64 I wonder if I should have selected 32.
I have a Windows 8 operating system
Well I tried the 32 and that didn't work.
Then I tried downloading Luminance (which I liked the program since you can adjust - just not as simple. Looked good on the screen but when I try to save it I have to save it in other options such as tif or other HDR extensions or something but jpg is never one of the selections I can choose. When I try to open the saved photo it doesn't recognize the extention.
Well I am learning bracketing which is awesome when I am not sure the best exposure as you mentioned - There are many times this will come in handy.
I am very lucky that my camera has the built-in HDR feature and it will merge 2 shots together.
I wonder if it is because I have the newest Windows 8 . It is too new and a lot of software isn't compatible with it yet. It took awhile before I could use Picmonkey or anything with Flash because the newest systems the programs were written for is Windows 7
By happy coincidence I actually did this challenge on my own yesterday so I thought I'd upload one of the attempts I'd made with bracketing. Note- I didn't have a tripod so these were all hand held.
I used GIMP and downloaded the Exposure Blend plug-in. Not quite HDR from what I understand but it easily blends 3 photos together. GIMP is open source, no fee. I'm not into post processing that much so GIMP works for my current needs but is not very user-friendly to me.
@lstasel Laura, love the results of your bracketed photos
So now that I found the setting on my camera- If I used it to get nice exposure in multiple areas of same photo would I layer them to get one nice all over exposure photo?
Picture on left is the result of the three shots on the right merged. I see all my exif info has vanished during the processing. Pictures taken on 30 November 2012. AE +/- 1.0
Took these yesterday. Decide to try it at the extreme end. I see how it works if you are clever enough to put them all together....still have a lot to learn about after the photo is taken!!
@onie I personally think photomatix is the easiest, best software for putting them together. There are a number of presets and then with each preset, you can tweak them more with different sliders and when you hover the mouse over one of the sliders, it tells you at the bottom what will happen if you slide it left or right.
@jsw0109
Thanks Jeff....you kind of lost me after the first sentance!!
I haven't delved into much editing...don't know what a preset or slider is, but plan on learning a bit about that next year. Just enjoying these challenges to learn all the bits of my camera.
My Sony Alpha 65 has a "handheld twilight" function that takes 6 rapid-fire pics in a row of differing E.V.s and stitches them for me. It was awesome for using in churches, etc, or in the evening/night when I was in Italy in October!! But I have not yet tried bracketing on my own. will give it a try!
Did this before I was aware of the challenge, but it's within the date range so I think it still counts: I'll post the bracketed shots later, but here ya go. Only thing is, I used a set of bracketed photos then added a fourth with some slightly different settings to make this one. I don't know if that disqualifies me, but I had fun with it either way :)
HDR shot of some Christmas decorations in a rich part of town
This one is made up of 7 pictures... there's details on it in the description if you click on it, but there's 2 sets of bracketed photos making up the right two thirds of the photo. Again, it's a little more involved than just bracketing a shot, so I'll let someone else decide if it's still a legal entry.
@jsw0109 Thank you so much for teaching this!! My camera does have a cool feature that combines 2 shots and makes them HDR but I never actually did the Layering/bracketing shot before so I LOVE learning this!!
Just an FYI, my Pentax K-r will automatically shoot pictures as HDR with either 3 or 5 shots. I don't need to use software to stich them together. I think a few other DSLRs do the same.
Here is another set of exposures. All are manual, cloudy white balance, f/8, ISO 200.
1. +1
2. 0
3. -1
4. HDR using Photomatix.
No processing on the first 3 shots. On the HDR I processed in Photomatix and did the tone mapping. I did not do any further processing. I included the shot to show that HDR is not always the best choice. The flower is very grey instead of off white. This sometimes happens with skies. Normally I would choose the best exposure for the area I was needing to fix and paint that back into the photo.
This is my preferred photo. I processed the "-1" exposure.
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I looked at Picturenaut and it is seems interesting. I may use for this challenge to see if I like it. I usually let my camera do HDR itself, but I will try it the old fashioned way.
I'll be trying this again with an outdoor shot this weekend I believe.
and this one at f/8, ISO-100, white balance 5900K, and exposures of 1/5000 +- 2
All exposures at f8.0 : 1 second, 1/5 and 1/25, ISO 80. Processed with Luminance 2.2.1 and tonemapped using the Mantiuk '06 operator on fairly conservative settings. More to come.
Here is the merged shot:
@tulipgirl - Alicia it almost doesn't matter what stop range you choose. It will depend somewhat on the lighting conditions. What you want is three (for the purposes of this challenge) images. The underexposed one will have the histogram mostly to the left and almost touching the left edge of the box. The overexposed one will have the histogram to the right and almost touching the right edge of the box. And the middle exposed one will have the histogram more centered. A little help on understanding histograms - http://digital-photography-school.com/understanding-histograms
So I found something that said I have 32 bit color. Is that what I am looking for?
Here's another one, same basic method as last time but with closer bracketing and in mono. I did the black and white conversion afterwards using Gimp because the sky and foreground needed different treatments, but it's entirely practicable to do it with Luminance by minimising the saturation level.
Question.
I hear people talking about tone mapping. How does this relate to HDR.
Some people are talking about merging the photos. Is that all HDR is?
I used Gimp to merge. They have a "export" to JPG that you have to use.
I have to play with this product more it is very confusing.
@jsw0109
HELP - that software doesn't save it to a Jpeg or bitmap it saves it as something else that my computer doesn't know how to read.
So I tried using the HDR software above ( http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/)
2.0 would be two full stops under and over, then all the choices in between.
I have a Windows 8 operating system
Well I tried the 32 and that didn't work.
Then I tried downloading Luminance (which I liked the program since you can adjust - just not as simple. Looked good on the screen but when I try to save it I have to save it in other options such as tif or other HDR extensions or something but jpg is never one of the selections I can choose. When I try to open the saved photo it doesn't recognize the extention.
Well I am learning bracketing which is awesome when I am not sure the best exposure as you mentioned - There are many times this will come in handy.
I am very lucky that my camera has the built-in HDR feature and it will merge 2 shots together.
I wonder if it is because I have the newest Windows 8 . It is too new and a lot of software isn't compatible with it yet. It took awhile before I could use Picmonkey or anything with Flash because the newest systems the programs were written for is Windows 7
Thanks very much for that Karen. Will go and have a play!
The center photo is my neutral shot. F/22 at 6 seconds. The left photo is F/22 at 10 seconds (+.67) and the right photo is F/22 at 4 seconds (-.67).
Here is the processed HDR
@lstasel Laura, love the results of your bracketed photos
@tthompsonca Thanks Terri.
So now that I found the setting on my camera- If I used it to get nice exposure in multiple areas of same photo would I layer them to get one nice all over exposure photo?
Thanks Jeff....you kind of lost me after the first sentance!!
I haven't delved into much editing...don't know what a preset or slider is, but plan on learning a bit about that next year. Just enjoying these challenges to learn all the bits of my camera.
and the final merged result:
HDR shot of some Christmas decorations in a rich part of town
Here are my shots:
And here the the layered HDR shot:
@myhrhelper Great shot Kathy.
1. +1
2. 0
3. -1
4. HDR using Photomatix.
No processing on the first 3 shots. On the HDR I processed in Photomatix and did the tone mapping. I did not do any further processing. I included the shot to show that HDR is not always the best choice. The flower is very grey instead of off white. This sometimes happens with skies. Normally I would choose the best exposure for the area I was needing to fix and paint that back into the photo.
This is my preferred photo. I processed the "-1" exposure.