How To Take HDR Exposures
Posted on 11. Mar, 2009 by Terry Reinert in Photography
Hali once again sent me a few links that I found to be quite interesting. Both were for posts by Jason (of Cannon Blogger fame) and dealt with taking multiple bracketed exposures. One explained how to use the shutter speed to take bracketed shots and the other explained how to use the aperture setting for bracketing shots. While it is the “Canon Blogger” blog, this information works just as well for Nikonian’s as it does for the Canonites.
I found some of the information to be useful and added a comment to each post expanding upon what was explained in the article. Instead of re-typing it all here in a post I will just give you the links and let you go check it out yourself. Make sure to check out his others posts while you are there too!
Using Shutter Speed To Bracket Exposures
Using Aperture To Bracket Exposures
Now that you have the links I just want to mention a few things..
1. DO NOT use aperture settings to bracket your exposures especially if you are going to merge them to HDR later!! The depth-of-field will change between each shot and you will end up with a poor merged file. Think about it… the algorithms that merge the images look for the best sample of each pixel from all the images that you are merging. If only one image has an ideal area then there is no real comparison being made. So in the end instead of getting a good merge based on the light dynamics of the scene you are going to get a poor merge based on focus. I cannot say this for fact but theoretically I can say that you are going to end up with a lot of merge artifacts as well that you will have to fix.
2. DO USE manual mode! Even if you are a new camera owner, do not be afriad of manual mode!! Remember, pixels are free! If you get a bad shot, delete it and move on. The joy of digital photography… you can make a mistake, see it right after making it, and then take another shot with different settings. Pixels are free. Repeat that to yourself constantly. That is your new mantra to meditate on! When you are in manual mode and turn on AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) for Canon cameras (not sure what Nikon calls it) then the camera will automatically adjust your shutter speed to make the bracketed images. If you are not using AEB, then turn the proper dial to adjust your shutter speed between each shot to get the exposure bracketing you need.
Now, I’d like to close this post with a little chant… say it with me now… Pixels Are Free! Pixels Are Free! Pixels Are Free! I’ve always wanted to start a cult. 
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