Pros Know this about Bracketing & Beginners Avoid It
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In this week’s episode, we discuss what the pros know about exposure bracketing that beginners avoid - at least I always did. When you're a beginner and just starting out with something, you don't know what you don't know - it's a bit cliche, but it's the truth. And, when I was a beginner, just getting started with photography, I fell into this trap regarding exposure bracketing or as I like to call it "over-exposure bracketing". In this video, I'll review a technique you can use to help you determine when you should and when you shouldn't exposure bracket a scene in order to save you some time both on-location and in the digital dark room. I hope you enjoy this week's video and as always thanks so much for watching! - Mark D.
VIDEO CHAPTERS
🔘 When You Don't Bracket: 02:36
🔘 When You May Bracket: 04:49
🔘 When You Must Bracket: 10:09
🔘 How to Tell the Difference: 11:22
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🌟QUESTION: Is Exposure Bracketing something you regularly do?
Sometimes, I do not have a lot of time and I bracket.
Yh, you got me! if I'm lazy or don't have enough time, I'm doing it "just in case" ;)
All good - we've all been there!@@photopoeth
Less and less these days. Only when needed. Was on the Lightroom HDR bandwagon for everything a while back.
Typically if I bracket I'll do it manually, I'll take 3 or sometimes even 5 various exposure of my choice instead of enabling the bracket in my camera. The scenes I'll do it for are usually city skyline scenes around dusk when I want to get the nice lights of the buildings but not too bright so I can bring out the natural lighting in the sky and on the buildings. Especially when doing drone shots.
I have been saved multiple times by exposure bracketing. I been a photographer for the last 40 years and two rules have transformed everything: 1) memory is cheap. Overshooting is a gift from God's. 2) HDR that you can control makes for a technically better photo than a wildly edited and masked single photo.
Mark, definitely one of the very best explanations of “when to use exposure bracketing & when not” I’ve seen online… great job & very understanding….!
This is a super explanation of when to bracket or not for most people in most situations. I learned from the simple way you explained it, even though I have many years of experience in photography, but not enough in landscape photography to be more than adequate at it. I really liked your histogram explanations. The only other thing I would have like to have seen in the video is an explanation of how to determine how much you should bracket in each direction. I do it by looking at the histogram and just changing the exposure enough to move the spike off the edge and taking another picture. Sometimes, depending on if the highlights, shadows or both are clipped, it only requires one extra photo in the appropriate direction. Because of this, I don’t use auto bracketing and just manually adjust and reshoot.
One big problem with looking at histograms "on the scene" is that cameras only show a histogram based on the jpeg that is displayed in the screen. This even changes when you change the jpeg settings (e.g. a certain color mode like "muted" or "vivid", or a film simulation). It's very sad that camera manufacturers apparantly cannot show the "true" raw histogram like it will be displayed in a raw converter. So looking at a histogram in camera is always a rough estimate only.
My Fujifilm X-T3 shows a different histogram when I switch the national live view on, which is supposed to represent the raw pixels if I'm not wrong - maybe am I misunderstanding something?
@@jahmalbaptiste9915 Natural Live View is still not a RAW representation but as far as other brands its way better than any flat profile.
Absolutely brilliant explanations. Clear and concise, that's what I like.
Just my two cents. (I shoot professionally for a major corp) Simply put exposure bracketing is a way to CYA and expand your dynamic range. It also provides a few different perspectives. I've shot with 8 different professional cameras over the past 10 years and have tallied up well over 2 million clicks, which is really not that much I get it, it could actually be closer to 7 million but I got way too busy 5 years back to keep track any longer. If you are setting up a scene and waiting for light or the environment to change, a quick bracket shot can give you a quick glimpse at how that scene will look at different levels of exposure. Sometimes it sparks an idea or highlights the way the lighting is hitting the scene and sometimes you can even find a shot while you are waiting for your shot. I get it through, the nature of photography attracts obsessive, perfectionist types who like to plan everything. I am not that guy, I'm quite the opposite and approach every shoot with an open mind. I admit that since I picked up a Z8 it seems like I am splitting hairs when I bracket, so I use it less. Especially when I am working with limited time, which is almost always the case these days.
Also, I get it, you have never needed it. Some make the same argument about dual memory card slots and buying insurance. However, when 99% of your work is client driven and I mean, you are literally shooting what they want and there is no room for your ego, no room for your creative vision, there is no better way to CYA than exposure bracketing. The reality is, most of the time we photographers are working with people who have a vision and know what they want but don't know how to execute or properly describe it. In those cases, communication is everything and well if you've ever played telephone you know even the best communicators, at best, suck. Also when working with non-pros they will use terms that they don't fully understand but use them because they think it makes them appear as if they are informed. So even when you think you know exactly what your client or boss wants, you could find out after the fact they meant something else. That's why even when they say, "I only need wide shots" I always take a few details or extras because after they see the pictures they sometimes will ask, even after saying they only need wides, "do you have any closeups of ______?"
Way more than two cents. Great humble bragging, too!😅
@@stunod1479 HAHAHA you think this is me bragging? Perhaps you should shut up and learn something. You have a long way to go brother and you are getting distracted with the wrong things. I've worked really hard to get here as does every other professional photographer. This is baseline for anyone in this industry. 2 million clicks is bragging? You need to get out more... And for the record I never said I wasn't wordy and I sincerely don't care, the only people who do are millenial idiots who were raised on 6 second vine videos. When you are ready to hear me brag, just reply.
@@stunod1479 Hahaha thanks for that laugh, if you believe that is bragging you have a long way to go brother. This is baseline for anyone going into professional phtography. It takes well more than 2 million clicks to accumulate the 10,000 hours of experience you need before you can even consider yourself an expert. I am not an expert, but I have worked really hard to get pretty close. So perhaps you should just hold your tongue and try to learn something because I never wasted my time trolling other photographers. And when I am ready to brag, you'll know it. Have a nice day.
I really appreciate the info help me understand The histogram more easily and how much different digital photography is as opposed to my film days when I did weddings and events in street photography. I'm buying a new kit and I've decided to go with Fuji XH2 and XH2S for the stacked sensor so I can shoot any kind of wildlife cuz I do birds. So this is great information for when I start doing landscapes again as I travel over the next few years. Thanks again.
Thanks for another great video Mark. I have always struggled a bit with bracketing and have watched plenty of videos on the subject. Your explanations are so clear and understandable that I feel a lot more confident in getting outside and using the histogramme in the correct way.
Great advice. Thanks and have a nice sunday 👍
Tremendous and valuable video - excellent explanation of exposure bracketing. Thanks Mark!!
I love your clear explanation of bracketing and when to use it. You are extremely easy to follow. Thank you!
Thanks Mark! Very helpful insight 👍
Thank you for the reminder of how important it is to pay attention to the histogram while in the field.
Thank you for this video and the advice for what to do in the field to prevent blowouts and ID when bracketing is needed!
Amazingly educational videos Mark
Thanks, Mark. This helped in better understanding the histogram in relation to the image in Lightroom, including in-camera usage before taking the photo. Great instructional video.
Thanks Mark. Your video has help clarify the use of bracketing and the interpretation of histograms, in relation to imagery!
Thanks for another great video. I always learn so much from you, especially how to process images. As a follow-up to this video, I would love to see one on how you process bracketed images. Thanks, again.
Your videos are the best! Thank you for sharing.
Great analysis and presentation of the topic. I almost always took "insurance" brackets in my early days, but mostly abandoned that as I learned more (as you point out) about interpreting the histogram. Image review is much faster now! Good stuff!
Thank you so much for this video. I've had issues understanding when to exposure bracket or not and this video helps me to better understand this. I will be implementing this next time I go out with my camera.
Thanks Mark. Excellent video which perfectly clarified how and when to use bracketing. Having seen another video which recommended it's regular use, I used the technique for most of my landscapes last year when visiting Norway. I didn't need most of the photos when it came to processing, so I learnt the lesson you have beautifully summarised in your video. Thanks again.
Thanks Mark! Great tips for knowing the WHEN rather than just a guess!
Great video Mark. Lots of great info. Now I have a better idea of when and how to exposure bracket. Thanks!😊😊
Great video & explained very well!
Great video Mark! Really appreciate the time you took to explain when to know if you should bracket. I think in general most of us need to pay more attention to the histogram on our camera on the field that will give you an idea of the whites and blacks being on the extreme but sometimes we get a bit too caught up in the moment or forget. I myself exposure bracket probably a bit too much and always end up having to delete unused photos. Histogram is such a powerful tool.
Thanks for taking the time to do this video. I found this very helpful!
Great to hear!
Your description on how to read the Histogram to tell if you need to use bracketing is the most valuable piece of information I've learned in a while. Thank you very much !
Another great video, Mark. I do agree with you that the need for bracketing has dropped significantly and I cannot remember the number times I have bracketed and not needed it after all: comparing elements of an underexposed and boosted image of the sequence versus a 'correctly exposed' image shows very little to no difference. But I would add two points - first, if you are having to do heavy shadow recovery you not only introduce noise but you also lose a lot of dynamic range in the colours which can (depending on the subject) end up looking flat and also can mean losing texture. And this is where assessing what you want from the shadows is important. Secondly, the red channel tends to blow significantly earlier than the other channels which is why relying on a luminance histogram can be risky. This can lead to significant colour shifts in things where red is dominant like sunsets and red poppies and the photo ends up being far more orange than in real life.
I have done the same exact thing and taken way too many thinking i"ll bracket and never end up using them. Learning the histogram is game changing in how to shoot photography. Good video Mark!
Great video Mark. I have followed a very similar progression. In Colorado, as you might remember, I bracketed everything. In the Dolomites, I rarely bracketed anything and if I did it was for good reasons.
Great vid as usual, Mark! Hope you and yours are well!
Thanks Nate!
Excellent and very helpful. Thanks!
This is very helpful, thank you
Great timing on exposure bracketing Mark!! With the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8th of this year, I found this video to be very helpful. We all know how bright the sun can be, even nearing totality, and with this event being a lifetime event, I think using exposure bracketing will help insure that I walk away with properly exposed photos. Dealing with the extra photos in this case will be a small price to pay. Thanks for a great video!!
You always explain everything so well. Very easy to understand. I'm very curious about HDR monitors, and how they affect exposure and printing.
Well explained Mark, i am sure i will try the Exposure Bracketing more (when needed)when pushing the extremes at both ends (shadows and Highlights). Thank you
very useful, thanks Mark.
Outstanding Mark! When in doubt, refer to the histogram.
Informative, Thanks Mark!
Thanks Paul!
I have tended to bracket most of the time. But I've been doing it much more selectively recently. On one trip I had thousands and thousands of photos that weren't needed. Those took disk space, and took a lot of time to weed through. And many of the + images were blurry because of camera or subject movement. So this was a timely video. Thanks for the perspective.
Excellent tips.
Awesome video Mark. Very useful and yes i have been known to bracket WAYYYYY too much. So will be using this information when i shoot this weekend and hoping to speed up my shoots rather than spending too much time in one spot and bracketing unnecessarily... thankyou... great video and easy to understand.
Super helpful Mark😊
Very informative and definitely going to apply to my photography
Great advice. Straight forward and explained very clearly. Thanks.
Thanks Richard!
Another great and helpful video, Mark! I was doing some research into my trusty old Nikon d5200 and It has about 9 steps of dynamic range. It is an 11 year old camera without a live histogram, and I'm not aware of any clipping warnings for my camera. The best I can do is to view the histogram after I take the photo and look for the sings that you mentioned here and then decide if I need to bracket. You make the valid argument about having to sort through triple the pics but I tend to take pics of hand gestures on either side of a bracketed group of images, panoramas and focus-stacked images. I've only ever done one bracketed image that I would consider worthy of exposition, as I struggle with getting to locales to apply many of the things I've learned watching your channel, Once again, great video! -Rick Wisniewski
Great video as always!
Thanks so much!
This was a really useful video for me. Now I realize I have been bracketing too often. Thank you for the pointers.
I wish vendors would inside their bracket setup allow a highlights with detail and bottom with detail exposure grab mode - without having to play around. I use the preserve highlights on my Nikon and then do a -2.5 and it seems to get me good results - but really the camera firmware could sense and do that automatically. Same with focus stacking - should be a mode where you can specify near point and a far point and how many in between and have it go do it.... no throw aways from shooting to infinity etc... just my opinion, which is generally wrong for some purist reason to almost everyone else. Good explanation on the technique and when to use it, when not....
Thank you. This was really informative! Now I truly understand why blown out highlights are a problem.
If you need to bracket as a manual shooter , its your choice of aperture or shutter , if you want to bracket and keep the aperture the same flip the finger = shutter up or down a few clicks , if you need to keep the shutter speed =thumb aperture up or down a few clicks , manual gives you a choice of which way you want to do it
Wonderful video and a reminder for me to put efforts into exposure bracketing. Also, i used to focus stack everything at one time begore slowing down. Nice to see the underrated GF 100-200mm which is my staple for landscape theese days. Soft on the longest focal length, but not a deal breaker.
Well dynamic range of the camera may seem to cover the bracketing range by itself but it will never be the same as exposure bracketing. It is imperfect because of the nature of sensor design, so pulling shadows and actually exposing them will never be the same in terms of contrast and colors. Every camera sensor works imperfectly after production and they are adjusted in factories by software to recover the faults and deliver an acceptable image. These faults and imperfections then show up in high ISO and shadow pull etc. If you need bracketting always do it, you will not regret it in post-processing.
Mark, Guilty as charged. I've been exposure bracketing every shot "just in case" during the last half dozen trips. I really appreciate your explanation of why and when I need to exposure bracket an image. As an exercise, I will go back to my last day trip and check the histogram of each properly exposed image to see if both sides of the histogram are clipped. I'll also check the images that show unrecoverable clipping of the shadows or highlights. Thanks for another informative video.
I appreciate all the videos you put out I’ve been watching for many years. 1 thing I don’t think I’ve seen you talk about is monitor calibration. I’ve just purchased datacolour SpyerX Pro as the photos I had printed I discovered aren’t what I saw on the screen. Microsoft on hp laptop. Just purchased a dedicated hp monitor to calibrate and hopefully print true colours. Thanks for the videos.
I rarely bracket with the intention of creating an HDR shot. Mostly I like to pick the best of three as a good spot to begin editing with the fewest adjustments and minimal degrees of adjustment. I think that gives me the best end result even when HDR is not needed.
Good tips! ❤❤❤❤thanks!
Thanks Mark
I often do exposure bracketing in situations with a high dynamic range even when it isn’t yet 100% necessary yet. This way i get way clearer shadows on my microfourthirds cameras. Else the shadows get really noisy and difficult to clean up without loss of detail.
I shoot Olympus and get a bit annoyed with people saying you don't need to do things with a modern pro camera. MFT cameras are brilliant in terms of cost, size and weight but benefit enormously from exposure bracketing t make up for the 4 stops less dynamic range.
Very helpful information! You explained it well. Thanks,
Glad you enjoyed it James!
Cheers Mark always appreciate your tips, always helpful and easy to understand. i think i do tend to use it as a backup when im shooting that just in case but slowly starting to move away form it as my confidence grows.
Thanks for always checking them out!
I just found your channel and I really love your contents! A new sub 👍
Thanks for sharing.
Great video! Nice pics! I also have the GF 32-64mm, love that lens. I saw that you often use f/16, I get a lot of diffraction at that aperture, so my limit is f/11.
Thanks, now I know what the Histogram is warning me to do. I normally try to keep from shooting into the light, but, sometimes with landscapes it is not always possible when I have something I want to photograph. Better learn to exposure bracket on my Fujifilm X-H1 and set it up ahead of time, if possible.
Did more in the beginning when it was new to me. But now I see it as a tool among many that I can use. You learn from the time on the tool and when and when not to use it.
It's more about cameras being better today. Older cameras absolutely do need exposure bracketing for outdoor scenes with sky, because you can't raise the shadows as cleanly as with newer cameras. With newer cameras all you need to do is expose for the highlights and you're good most of the time.
God bless you man. You are a great example of what each individual can accomplish no matter where they came from as long as they dig down and try their ass off. 😎👊👍🇦🇺
Thank ya my friend!
Nice summary review! When the dynamic range of a scene appears a bit iffy, go ahead and focus bracket - even if you think the RAW histogram *might* be OK. Go ahead and be on the safe side - because NOBODY is going to know that you 'cheated' by using focus bracketing. Take advantage of what the digital camera can do (but don't let that allow you to become lazy or sloppy). The increased dynamic range of imaging sensors in modern cameras over the past many years is quite impressive and the need for HDR, image compositing and related post-processing methods is certainly diminishing for such issues!
Yes, I exposure bracketing most of the time. It is a habit from shooting HDR back in the day. It does triple the exposures and I do clean up some of the photos not needed.
Good advice. I’ve saved a few overexposed frames by using a linear profile in Lightroom. Takes all the camera adjustments away. More work to edit but can be useful.
Thanks John!
Great vid .... well presented :)
Thank You ...alot ive been learn from your content..tq
Love to hear this!
Really well done explanation Mark, thank you. Yup, guilty, I do perhaps exposure bracket more than needed. I started bracketing to save time both while out shooting and to reduce the time required for editing. I don't tend to bracket if there is movement in the frame while shooting. Not sure if the fact that I'm using an APS-C camera is part of the issue.
It boils down to understanding the dynamic range of a scene and how camera limitations might apply to it. I shoot a lot with Sigma's Foveon cameras and their dynamic range is extremely limited - so bracketing is very often required. The histogram /barely/ lies.
Fantastic! I use my histogram religiously but this helps me see it (and understand it) in a different way.
Great to hear it was helpful!
I bracket everything; longtime habit- 44 years commercial work. Started as a newspaper PJ; then mags….and the FIRST RULE is….GET THE SHOT! Whatever it takes. I shoot RAW/JPG large for everything. I delete all RAWS after my final picks; the remainder of jpegs are then downsized for storage. I’m also not a landscape shooter, so your mileage and methods may vary.
I want that hoodie!
Excellent dynamic range exposure advice. Humans can see ~21 stops while the best cameras can only 'see' ~15. No harm in auto bracketing everything as long as you have space... just delete what you don't need when you edit. It's very rare to need values above 0, maybe +1 for shadows, but for sky detail going deep into the negative EVs is required! For a shot with the Sun or Moon a -5 can save the key details.
Another great video
Thanks so much!
super useful. thank you very much
Glad it was helpful!
I always use my histogram. I find that bracketing helps in certain situations for example shooting cities at night or high contrast landscapes. Most cameras offer more than enough dynamic range for most situations, but not all
You must be reading my mind. When I went from film to digital, I bracketed everything because the images were free - compared to film. Then I found myself confronted with way too many images and eventually lost patience with it. Then I stopped bracketing as I got higher quality cameras that I trusted more. Then in complex shadow/sunlight images I found my camera less than more perfect. So now I bracket in challenging situations. Thanks for these hints on when to bracket. Very helpful!
Thank you! for the video. Light bulb moment for me....
Great video. I had no clue there was exposure bracketing. lol.
I generally do not exposure bracket due to the fact I was unsure when it was needed. Now thanks to this video I have a guide. Thanks for sharing this helpful information.
Glad to do it!
One thing I've worked on to expand the envelope of "not needed" is using GNDs that can be angled and positioned in various ways. Sometimes stacking them to increase positioning and stops. Can work really well in many cases. Also, more fun than just stacking! 🙂
Cave age technique.
Agree. There's a reason these are still being sold. Apart from bringing the contrast down to acceptable levels, they slow you down in your photography which usually improves your composition.
It would be helpful to know the purpose of exposure bracketing. For example, is it to ensure a safety shot in case your single exposure is off? Or is the purpose to provide a series of exposures +/- for creating HDR images? Or perhaps it’s for blending/composing in Photoshop. Perhaps a follow-up video demonstrating camera setup and image processing of an exposure bracketed image would be helpful.😮 Thanks.
Thanks!
🙏🙏🙏
As usual, I watched the video with interest. With landscape photography as a favorite theme, deciding "to bracket or not to bracket" is an interesting topic. The next step is combining the recordings. I'm curious which method you use for this. With a one-click HDR solution or another method using the blendif option for example.
All well-known stuff - but rarely explained so well and clearly! Thanks a lot, will help many photographers "to the next level..." ;-)
Thanks a lot
This was SO useful! Thank you, I love the way you approach education and your general candor. So glad I found your page! Question on a similar topic, have you ever used (or a different brand version) of Highlight Tone Priority on Canon? My R6 offers a feature to ensure highlights remain intact, but usually at that cost of a minimum ISO of 200 instead of 50/100. There are a lot of back-n-forth opions on this and would love your throughts. On one hand it feels like cheating & teaching yourself a handicap instead of proper exposure, but on another it could be very useful in fast paced settings (like weddings with white dresses, or kids in labor day outfits). However the real meat of my question is what if anything am I losing by using this setting, are there hidden impacts to consider? Thanks!
Great useful video. Can't count the times I've bracketed and ended up only using one of the files. From what you showed, I worried too much about the shadows after ecposing to avoid blown highlights.
I also for a very short time exposure bracketed frequently. Shooting in raw and editing removes most of the need. There are times in landscape that i bracket and combine very dark and light to help expand the dynamic range, but,. Seldom
Hi, very usefull ty😊
Excellent video Mark. This makes me wonder if you'd ever need to do more than 2 exposures in a case where bracketing is necessary. It seems like with a decent enough camera, 2 exposure would be enough for everything?
Fantastic video! On my Sony A7 you can review the clipped areas ... I believe someone affectionately calls them "blinkies"
Very good video! Thx. Would have been perfect if you had talked about the consequence on colours when using and not using exposure bracketing. Maybe in another video ^^
I rarely exposure bracket to deal with HDR situations, especially now that adjusting the sky separately from the foreground is so easy in Lightroom. However, I routinely do 3 shot brackets as insurance that I have a good starting point and I (or the camera) have not missed-judged something that I later see in post. It takes virtually no time to do so and the worst downside is the extra space taken by the two files I don’t use. That said, on occasion, I have even gone back and used one of those files in a re-edit process.