in this episode we learn about
auto exposure bracketing - Adorama TV presents exploring photography
with Mark Wallace where you learn innovative techniques
on shooting a wide range of photography here's your host
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well a few weeks ago I talking to some of my photographer friends about
auto exposure bracketing and where my friend said he was having issues when
shooting in shutter priority mode specifically said
sometimes exposure bracketing just didn't work well before getting to that
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Well first lets talk about what exposure bracketing is
bracketing is simply taking a series of photos at the same scene
usually 3 photos one that's exposed correctly one that is
underexposed and one that is overexposed
normally you under and overexposed by the same amount so if you had an under
Exposed shot there was uderexposed by one-stop your
overexposed shot would be overexposed by one-stop as well
well almost all cameras have an auto exposure bracketing feature now this is
normally referred to as
AEB as stands for auto exposure bracketing
and it normally has a symbol that looks something like this: so if you see that
on your camera's menu
that is the I auto exposure bracketing symbol. Before getting to how auto
exposure bracketing works let's talk about why you might want to use it
traditionally AEB is use in one of 2 scenarios
the first is when you're not quite certain of your exposure what
you wanna make
absolutely certain you get the shot this is something that landscape
photographers have been using for years
AEB is also used to create HDR
images HDR stands for high dynamic range and its when you take
three or more photos and you combine them to create an image
that has a photo realistic effect in fact I created in HDR image
and used auto exposure bracketing in all the last episode exploring photography
to create this image the Basilica of the National Val
almost all cameras with auto exposure bracketing have the same basic
settings - now for the specific have your camera make sure you check your camera
user manual
but generally all cameras work something like this the first thing you need to do
is turn
on auto exposure bracketing next
some cameras allow you to set how many shots you'd like to take
in your auto exposure bracketing series the third thing you need to do is tell
your camera how much to over and underexpose
each image this usually ranges from one-third
to 3 stops finally set your drive mode to continuous
or self-timer mode once this is all set up
you just press the shutter release once to take all the shots
in the series now some cameras you can set the drive mode to single
to allow you to take each in the shot individually using a separate shutter
Press
for each up the shots it's important to understand that
auto exposure bracketing works differently in different modes
and this is why my friend was having issues when on exposure bracketing using
shutter priority mode
and understand this lets first take a look at how auto exposure bracketing
works in
aperture priority mode - in aperture priority mode
you set the camera aperture now let's say we've set our aperture to
F 8 now the camera will use its built-in
light meter to set the shutter for a proper exposure now for argument sake
let's say our shutter speed is one two hundred and fiftieth
a second for a proper exposure if we've set our
auto exposure bracketing to under and overexposed by
one stop here's what will happen the first
correctly exposed photo will be made at F 8
and 1/250 of a second the second underexposed
shot will be made at F 8 and 1/500
a second and the third overexposed shot
will be made it F 8 and 1/125 of a second
Our aperture is staying the same
but our shutter is changing to create those under and overexposed
images because our shutter can slow all the way down to thirty seconds
and speed up to 4,000th of a second and even on some cameras
go all the way up to 8000th of a second we have a lot of latitude when we're
exposure bracketing
using aperture priority mode now in shutter priority mode the exact
opposite is happening our shutter is staying the same but our
aperture is opening and closing to create the over and underexposed
images and this is where we can run into a lot of issues
let's say that we have and image where we had a proper exposure up 160 of a
second
at f2.8 and we want to bracket by one-stop
that's one image overexposed by one stop and one image underexposed
by one stop let's also assume our lens has a maximum aperture opening
a F2.8 our first properly exposed image
will be made at 160th of a second at f2.8
our second underexposed image will be made at 160th of a second
at F4 but will run into issues
on our third overexposed image
to over exposed by a full stop our aperture would need to open to
F2 but our lens isn't able to do this
so we just end up with an additional properly exposed image
shot f2.8 fix the issue you need to increase your ISO by one stop so your
aperture would have some room to breathe
or you can adjust your shutter my one-stop as well
doesn't matter which way you choose the important thing to remember is that when
you're in shutter priority mode using auto exposure bracketing
you run into issues when the aperture is fully open
for the properly exposed image now what about manual mode
well in manuel mode there is no auto exposure bracketing you do it everything manually
you can either adjust the aperture to over an underexposed or
and change the shutter to do the trick so in manual mode you just have to do it
yourself
now two additional notes about auto exposure bracketing
the first is when I'm using auto exposure bracketing I most
always use aperture priority mode because in shutter priority mode
when the aperture changes your dept of field changes away as well
and so that's something I try to avoid the second thing is bracketing isn't
just for exposure
you can also bracket you're white balance you can bracket your ISO and you
can even
bracket your focus that these are topics that will cover in future episodes
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