Automatic Exposure Bracketing for HDR Shooting

By bullshoalsview written 1/21/08 7:13 PM, published 1/23/08 4:32 AM
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This is a story about screwing up.  Back in October, I was rushing to put a bunch of stuff on ebay before my monthly poker night.  I had a brain wave, it said to me... "Reset your camera for 3 megapixels and shoot these in low resolution to save time having to compress them and save for web to put on the ebay listings."  I said to myself "Great idea, and I changed the settings on the camera."

I go off to Poker night, and all of a sudden, there is a double rainbow over my friends house, with the most spectacular red sky bringing in the storms... My camera was in the car, cause I never leave home without it, so I grabbed it and fired off about 50 or 60 shots of the miraculous happenings in the sky.  My hubby called me on my cell phone, and said, "Are you shooting this sky?  Well, of course I am!" I replied.

After poker, got home and downloaded the shots.  I thought, wow, these pictures are really crappy, what in the world happened here.... then a big brick hit me on my pea brain, and said... You shot the best sky of the year in 3 megapixels you idiot.  I have been so PO'd at myself for doing this, I waited until now to sit down and try to salvage these shots.  

So here is my little tutorial.... HDR can sometimes be used to TONE DOWN a shot, not just put it over the top!

Check out these exposures.  Aperture setting... Automatic exposure bracketing set at Minus 2... 0.... and Plus 2.
The sky is so red it doesn't even look real... but these are how they came straight out of the camera.

Minus 2

 Zero

Plus 2

I went ahead and generated a HDR out of these three shots on Photomatix Pro.  I DEsaturated the color 55% while tone mapping to get the sky toned down.  At least now I also have a little foreground in the HDR exposure.

Photomatrix 3X Composite

So two lessons learned here...

Always take a second to check your settings on your camera before you start to shoot....

And sometimes HDR can be used to tone down a photo instead of pumping it up!

PS  You don't have to critique the photos, I know they stink.


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  • Penny 1/21/08 7:39 PM
    I think the colors in the first and the last are really cool. The last one with the grays is really moody feeling. I do usually click a shot to see what I need to adjust my settings too. Learned that before the hard way too.

    - Smile


  • msjudi 1/21/08 10:14 PM
    Wow.. hot colors!

    - Smile ; )


  • andreaeagle 1/21/08 11:02 PM
    I learned my lesson, too, lol...first and last are great.

    - come over for lunch


  • Lidljo 1/22/08 4:13 AM
    I like the last one best!

    - Flowers are happiness...


  • KayN 1/22/08 6:03 AM
    Great save, Carol! I hate it when I do something like that, though...........really gets me angry at myself........

    - Ms.N


  • RobinG 1/22/08 9:05 AM
    Thanks for the info. I have been known to do things like that. I ruined my photos from my daughters graduation! :o)

  • Katster 1/22/08 10:09 AM
    Those are some clouds! like your final photo 3x... nice going!

    - Just hanging on!


  • The Old Guy 1/22/08 10:25 AM
    Glad to know others do the things that i do. I now try to remember: If I have changed any settings, change them back immediatly after the shoot. Ha! What I really need to change are a few brain cells. I like very red sunsets but usually they produce what you have in the first couple, very dark foreground. I like how you did it in the composite. And if these stink, well your best must be outstanding. and they usually are.

    - So shoot already!!


  • Ashton 1/22/08 10:47 AM
    I can so relate to checking things before hand! The good lord and I have some very interesting conversations after I pull stunts like this, they always end with thank you Sir for the opppotunity to see what you wanted me to see and forgive me for missing the chance to share it. LOL Well since you asked and even if you didn't I believe this is a case of a "OOPS" working to your advantage. Lessons learned and cool looking pictures! I really like the HDR one.

    - Say...CHEESE


  • kitzi 1/22/08 6:16 PM
    yeppers, did the very same thing just the other day...great save!

    - ©kitzi


  • bugaboo 1/23/08 4:32 AM
    The HDR fix is fantastic, it gets my vote, great save!

  • cdbbdc 1/23/08 6:01 AM
    I'm learning . . . What is HDR?

    - Hockey Fan


  • bullshoalsview 1/23/08 6:13 AM
    cdbbdc HDR is high dynamic range photography. Here is a quick tutorial on HDR that I have lifted and copied from a previous post of mine... There is lots of info out there on it.... just google it! Here is the quick version in case others want to know.... Best to use a tripod and a shutter release cable. If your camera has automatic exposure bracketing you set it for an underexposure, correct exposure, and overexposure. On my canon 30D I use the settings -2 0 and +2. Fire off your three shots and download as usual. The program I bought is called Photomatix. You can google it, there is a free download to play with, but it puts the photomatix logo across your shots, to get rid of that you have to purchase it, and register the program. It is $99, but at the time I got 15% off by entering a discount code which I will look up again. The program is very simple to use. You load in your three photos, generate a composite photo, and then the fun begins. Tone mapping the new shot. From all the tutorials I have read on it, there are no hard and fast rules, you just move your sliders for all the options until you achieve the desired look. You can save your settings, and if you are shooting a lot of the same thing (like my view) then you don't have to start from scratch each time, you can just tweak it. That is it, it is so simple. I am using Jpeg shots. I finally shot some in Raw, but haven't worked on them yet. Some of the really fantastic shots I have seen in HDR are up to 9 raw shots.... I will get there eventually. Any questions, please PM me...

    - Run Bubba Run!


  • KARA 1/24/08 5:46 AM
    wow! great color!!

    - kara


  • Someone 1/25/08 10:16 PM
    I think you should have added 2 More exposures, at least one more exposing the foreground more, not worrying about blowing out the highlights since Photomatrix will take care of that in the Mix. In something with this much Dynamic range 5 exposures works best. Nice job though

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