Exposure bracketting in Nikon D60

Since the Nikon D60 does not have Canon's automatic exposure bracketting capability, what is the best approach for a set of photographs for merging to get High dynamic range?

I understand that one should:

1. Use a tripod
2. Select Shutter Priority to vary only the Shutter speed
3. Lock the mirror
4. Use a remote shutter release if possible

Can one use the exposure compensation to get +/- 2.0 Ev on each side of the normal exposure, keeping all other settings the same?

Will appreciate advice

Hello again,

I don't know anything about the D60 but I will see a friend 2morrow who has one and will have a good look at the bracketing options, as well as your lens probs, in the meantime I would defer to the tutorials on this site as they answer most technique questions. As to HDR you've answered your own questions (apart from BRKTG) but what sort of images are you trying to take? I ask as you may need to take more into consideration such as metering.

Mark

Thanks Mark!
I look forward to your inputs. I am currently interested in scenes in high contrast such as sunsets with relatively dark foregrounds against a much brighter sky.
Will Jepg fine be adequate or is it better to shoot in RAW?

Jayant

I have been using a camera without bracketing option for HDR's.

I use a tripod and manually change the shutter speed myself rather than using exposure correction. Just remember if you are in shutter priority mode and manually adjust the shutter speed the camera will adjust the aperture to compensate and try to correctly expose the image. What you want to do is have the aperture fixed and vary the shutter speed to give the over/under exposed images, so I use manual mode for this. (When I started a few weeks ago on HDR's, I wasted a few shots by not realising this)

You may be able to use the exposure correction to get the same results in shutter priority mode, I'm not sure as I didnt try this on my camera.


Hope that helps.

Hey mate,

Chatanooga's got it covered, but you don't mention the software you're using, as to using RAW I personally would recomend it, but again it depends on the software. I use Capture NX very rarely as it's only plus point (for me anyway) is the control point feature, so I stick to photoshop CS3.

Mark

As with panoramas, use manual settings. Only change the shutter speed, keep ISO and white balance on manual.

Thank you all for your tips on exposure braketting.
I use Adobe's Camera RAW 4.5 and post process
on Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended for RAW images.
Probably it is best to stick with RAW for HDR shots as well.

Jayant

Why do you have to lock the mirror?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pia Cardeno

Why do you have to lock the mirror?

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To minimise the risk of blurring due to (camera+tripod) vibration caused by mirror going up and down 3 times in quick succession.

It may be an issue on some cameras (if on weak/wobbly tripods), and it can't harm to follow the advice, but I do wonder how real the 'mirror slap' problem is these days.

Cheers,

I use a D300 with automatic bracketing. My wife shoots with a D40 which doesn´t bracket the same way. However, it is still possible to bracket images. My advice is: Shoot RAW; Disconnect automatic ISO (keep it at 200); get a sturdy tripod and a remote; Shoot in Aperture priority as you´ll want to get the same depth of field in all shots taken (I´d not recommend the Shutter Speed option as it will change the depth of field to match the different speeds); Adjust exposure compensation btw +2EV till -2EV in 5 different steps . Lock the mirror up; merge everything later with Photomatix or another software.
Hope this helps.

Shoot the image in RAW and use your HDR software to convert.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by raghunath

Since the Nikon D60 does not have Canon's automatic exposure bracketting capability, what is the best approach for a set of photographs for merging to get High dynamic range?

I understand that one should:

1. Use a tripod
2. Select Shutter Priority to vary only the Shutter speed
3. Lock the mirror
4. Use a remote shutter release if possible

Can one use the exposure compensation to get +/- 2.0 Ev on each side of the normal exposure, keeping all other settings the same?

Will appreciate advice

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by raghunath

Since the Nikon D60 does not have Canon's automatic exposure bracketting capability, what is the best approach for a set of photographs for merging to get High dynamic range?

I understand that one should:

1. Use a tripod
2. Select Shutter Priority to vary only the Shutter speed
3. Lock the mirror
4. Use a remote shutter release if possible

Can one use the exposure compensation to get +/- 2.0 Ev on each side of the normal exposure, keeping all other settings the same?

Will appreciate advice

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Hi there,

Welcome to the CiC forums.

I'd just like to clarify why step 2 is definitely not the way to do it, a couple (or 3) others have said 'use manual', but not explained why, which I think would be useful.

If you use Shutter priority, the camera is essentially still on Auto, so when you take the first shot at say; 1/125 (at say f8), when you select 1/250, all that will happen is the camera thinks you still want the same exposure and it will open the aperture to f5.6, then when you take at 1/60, it will close down to f11 - because the camera doesn't know (in Shutter or Aperture priority) that you want to bracket, it only knows to give the right exposure.

I guess in theory you could use EC to give under and over exposed shots (the brackets), but as someone mentioned, this should be done by forcing a fixed Aoerture, hence Aperture priority, this should make the camera vary the shutter speed to achieve the bracketing.

To my mind, manual is more predictable, you set the aperture you want, meter and set a shutter speed, then vary that up and down by say two stops.

Cheers,

For anyone who likes to shoot with automatic exposure bracketing; I wrote a Windows 7 program to control the Nikon D60 from a laptop via USB connection.

This little console program comes with no warranty but I hope it gets useful for still ühotography. Here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/d60autombracketing/ << the link to my dropbox with the program is in the desciption of the sample pictures.

One of the advantages of the Canon DSLR system over the Nikon (I am sure that Nikon has advantages over the Canon so this isn't a flame posting!) is that all Canon DSLR cameras (I have used Canons from the old D60 through my present 7D and have also used Rebels) have AEB in burst mode in which you can elect AEB and set burst mode. And the camera will fire off three shots and then stop firing until the next time the shutter is pressed.

Lacking AEB and burst mode, I would set the camera in Aperture priority mode and use Exposure control to reduce and increase the exposure over the meter reading. This would keep the aperture (and therefore the focus) constant and would change the exposure bu changing the shutter speed.

Hi, one area that has not been covered above is that it is advisable not to use Auto WB (white balance) if there is going to be some time delay between bracketed shots due to manual intervention. Changes in lighting may possibly alter the WB.

This can be achieved on the D800, but is a 2-step process. Step 1 is set up bracketing mode and step 2 is to select the maximum number of shots that can be taken in a burst. Move the camera into burst mode, press the shutter release and it will take exactly the number of shots that has been programed in and will then stop.

If the camera doesn't do bracketing there is an easy way in editing. You take one exposure and then in RAW or jpeg make a duplicate copy or two and adjust the copies up and/or down and then feed them into the HDR process. I have yet to use bracketing or the HDR feature in my editor becuase working something like the above is so easy, though normally I use an adjustment layer with different strengths of grey in different areas of the photo as required. In fact when I discovered what HDR was it was a let down becuase I had been doing my thing to similar effect for yonks :)

Since I have only once of many times shooting panoramas used a tripod [ it was a PITB :) ] I find it is very easy to line up different frames by reducing the brightness of the upper layer so you can see the one below.... but of course you have to have an editing programme with this ability, I gather it is missing in some. So if you do not have a good tripod that is really steady it could be worth getting the hang of this.