HDR photography101, 201, 401 + Why does canon hate Auto Exposure Bracketing?

[Majeed Badizadegan]

For those of us who are interested in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography it is a real shame how Canon has completely crippled even their mid to high end cameras by limiting AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) to only 3 exposures.

A serious nod should go to Trey Ratcliff Stuck In Customs HDR Photography for his fantastic work and excellent implementation of HDR photography. Mr. Ratcliff primarily shoots 5 RAW exposures per scene, and given his vast array of work in HDR and the results, he knows what he's doing. He takes amazing photos.

Why is it important in some challenging light situations to take more than 3 exposures? More shadow detail and more highlight detail can be extracted in challenging light situations. There is an excellent example of such a scenario where Mr. Ratcliff goes into detail on exactly this topic:


3 exposures is not enough for a lot of situations if you are serious about HDR. I personally use CS5 and Photomatix for post processing my AEB. I believe that HDR can be overcooked and have a fake look to it. A lot of people overdo it. But if it's done correctly it opens up a whole new world of photography, and your photos. You can shoot scenes and light situations that were not possible before.

Serious HDR photographers understand that touching the camera in any way (e.g. moving the dials to set a new bracket to take more exposures) is UNDESIRABLE because you are adding time to your bracket and possibly mistakenly moving the camera. Ghosting from even the slightest movement can be a problem if the camera is moved when adjusting brackets. Secondly, imagine shooting a sky where the clouds are moving quickly. Even 1 or 2 seconds of messing around with your dials/brackets is not desirable. This article flushes this topic out in great detail.
My favorite quote in the article:

Time and any instability including touching the camera are enemies of the HDR photographer. (From user Big Al p.2)

Canon drops the ball by limiting to 3 exposures in a big way. Here is a list of all digital cameras and their AEB limitations.

Auto Exposure Bracketing by camera model

As you can see in the first column, even professional cameras like the 5D MK II ($2499.00 Body only @ Amazon) are limited to 3 exposures. This makes no sense to me. When you scroll down the list to Nikon cameras, one can see right away that many of the Nikon cameras allow 2-9 exposures in their respective AEB brackets .

One can see right away that you can get the built in functionality of higher AEB at a much lower entry cost with Nikon. (E.g. Nikon D300s $1,198 body only). Notice from this chart Canon only offers built-in higher AEB (3,5,7) in their 1D series. What does that mean? If you want to shoot HDR with Canon you need some serious coin, or you have to resort to clunky alternatives (will explain later). For the 1D series, You're paying an entry price of $4,000+ (body only, and this is a conservative estimate) for a functionality that Nikon offers in most of their mid to high end cameras. (Although, it's a shame that it doesn't appear on the D7000.)

Here are some useful templates that break down each respective DSLR family of cameras.

Template:Nikon DSLR cameras - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Template:Canon DSLR cameras - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I've researched many of the alternatives out there for canon shooters. One alternative requires an expensive remote with cumbersome cords.
(Read the reviews on Amazon for that and you'll see what I'm talking about). Others suggest tethering your camera via laptop or using apps on your phone. A few suggest using different firmware such as magic lantern (e.g. booting from a CF card instead of your cameras firmware). Some suggest using the custom dials on the DSLR itself (which still requires touching the camera, and still costs time).

All in all, the alternatives are cumbersome and SHOULD BE unnecessary. Why are we paying big money for DSLR's that have all these advanced technological capabilities, but don't allow us to have more control over something as simple as our bracket settings? Why do we have spend $2,000 more to get this feature in the 1D series? Almost all of the Canon DSLR's have the hardware capabilities to do this which makes the problem all the more frustrating.

Canon, I'm calling you out. You have artifically crippled most of your cameras for no reason. Roll out a firmware update to keep your customers happy and get with the times. Hopefully new models of your cameras, coming out this year (I'm personally crossing my fingers for the 5D MK III), will addresss this issue. Or I'm going Nikon. Simple as that.

 

[KmH]

HDR is not a beginner technique.

TPF has an HDR forum section, but one has to scroll down the forum section page some to find it:

HDR Discussions
High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene.

Anyone else interested in HDR will find more HDR info in that forum section.

 

[KmH]

Canon, I'm calling you out. You have artifically crippled most of your cameras for no reason. Roll out a firmware update to keep your customers happy

Good luck with that.

 

[480sparky]

Your camera isn't crippled. The operator just hasn't discovered the "M".

 

[KmH]

Many can't seem to live without 'automatic', like in Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB).

 

[Overread]

*moved to HDR subsection*


If one is using a tripod to take the landscape shots for the HDR image and the timing of the shots needs to be exact you'll be hard pressed to get a full stack without any shake blur done in very tiny amounts of time, since to avoid all shake you'll be using the mirror lockup - which means at least a delay or 1/2 seconds per shot. Otherwise you're risking mirrorslap shake getting on the shots - in that case you might as well just twist the dial on the back a little to get your 5,6,7,etc... stack of exposures.

I think saying that having an extended range of brackets would be desirable, but I think its a tall order to try and say its crippled the cameras.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Your camera isn't crippled. The operator just hasn't discovered the "M".

Please elaborate. Since you are quick to be condescending, I have no choice but to question your credibility: Being that it appears you shoot Nikon, what exactly do you even know about Canon DSLR AEB or the topic at hand? Do you even really know what you're talking about or are you just trolling?

If so, please describe the exact Canon model "M" mode setting, Camera model, & settings that I should "discover" (mind you that the collective mindhive of the internet has not to this point) that will serve the purposes that I have outlined in EXHAUSTIVE detail here.

Many can't seem to live without 'automatic', like in Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB).

Not sure what you are saying here.

*moved to HDR subsection*


If one is using a tripod to take the landscape shots for the HDR image and the timing of the shots needs to be exact you'll be hard pressed to get a full stack without any shake blur done in very tiny amounts of time, since to avoid all shake you'll be using the mirror lockup - which means at least a delay or 1/2 seconds per shot. Otherwise you're risking mirrorslap shake getting on the shots - in that case you might as well just twist the dial on the back a little to get your 5,6,7,etc... stack of exposures.

I think saying that having an extended range of brackets would be desirable, but I think its a tall order to try and say its crippled the cameras.

*Thanks for moving to appropriate section.

I'd rather space out my shots evenly than deal with cumbersome dialing. I have never said that bracketing isn't possible, and there are alternatives like the ones you've mentioned. I'm just saying there is no good reason that Canon should exclude this simple feature from firmware in their mid-to-high end DSLRS (namely 7d, 5d Mk II, etc.)

I do believe Canon has artificially crippled these cameras by removing the feature so the 1D marketing team has an easier job. That's what I'm saying.

 

[480sparky]

Your camera isn't crippled. The operator just hasn't discovered the "M".

Please elaborate. Since you are quick to be condescending, I have no choice but to question your credibility: Being that it appears you shoot Nikon, what exactly do you even know about Canon DSLR AEB or the topic at hand? Do you even really know what you're talking about or are you just trolling?

If so, please describe the exact Canon model "M" mode setting that I should "discover" that will serve the purposes that I have outlined in EXHAUSTIVE detail here.

M stands for Manual. As in Manual exposure. You can take as many shots as your memory card will allow using that setting. I'm fairly certain the function is in the owners manual.

 

[dxqcanada]

Back in the days before AEB ... we used to meter the scene, take one shot (camera on tripod), then manually change the exposure, take another shot, then manually change the exposure, take another shot ... etc = exposure bracketing.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Your camera isn't crippled. The operator just hasn't discovered the "M".

Please elaborate. Since you are quick to be condescending, I have no choice but to question your credibility: Being that it appears you shoot Nikon, what exactly do you even know about Canon DSLR AEB or the topic at hand? Do you even really know what you're talking about or are you just trolling?

If so, please describe the exact Canon model "M" mode setting that I should "discover" that will serve the purposes that I have outlined in EXHAUSTIVE detail here.

M stands for Manual. As in Manual exposure. You can take as many shots as your memory card will allow using that setting. I'm fairly certain the function is in the owners manual.

I am still not convinced you even understand what this thread is about. Or have even read the thread. Or that you even know what AEB is. And if you do, you're very bad at drawing connections or explaining yourself. I have provided a plethora of concerns here and have been incredibly specific about exactly what my concerns are, and I see no reason to repeat myself. So if you want to be vague and Troll-ish, go somewhere else.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Back in the days before AEB ... we used to meter the scene, take one shot (camera on tripod), then manually change the exposure, take another shot, then manually change the exposure, take another shot ... etc = exposure bracketing.

To me, taking only 3 exposures and manually moving a dial on my camera is just as tedious as what you've depicted here.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

If you want to shoot HDR with Canon you need some serious coin,

Humph...I haven't had any problem shooting for HDR, from my Canon XSi, to my 5Dmkii. *shrug*Multi shot bracketing would be nice, but I don't find it a necessity. Nor crippling with it absent.

 

[Compaq]

Ideally, I'd like to be able to the AEB on my 40D to do the following: take as many shots as I want of the scene with X stops in between each frame. Whether I need 3 shots to cover the dynamic range, 5 or 11, I could tell the camera to do it.

But, then you move to another scene, with another dynamic range and you must dive into the menus to change the AEB settings.

Dude, use the manual setting and just turn the wheel. Don't cry about your camera. Sure, AEB might come in handy one day, but in all seriousness, manually setting the exposures takes no time at all. I do the following:

- compose
- focus
- check the range (how many stops)
- start on the underexposed shots
- move the wheel three clicks (shutter speed changes in 1/3rd increments)
- take the next shot
- continue until I'm done

Turning that wheel takes less than a second. The cameras aren't crippled, you're just dependent on auto settings and won't bother do it yourself.

My own opinion.

 

[480sparky]

I am still not convinced you even understand what this thread is about. Or have even read the thread. Or that you even know what AEB is. And if you do, you're very bad at drawing connections or explaining yourself. I have provided a plethora of concerns here and have been incredibly specific about exactly what my concerns are, and I see no reason to repeat myself. So if you want to be vague and Troll-ish, go somewhere else.

What is so vague about "Use Manual Exposure Mode to take as many frames as your memory card will allow" do you not understand?

You don't need to throw a hissy fit and call others names just for lack of understanding.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Ideally, I'd like to be able to the AEB on my 40D to do the following: take as many shots as I want of the scene with X stops in between each frame. Whether I need 3 shots to cover the dynamic range, 5 or 11, I could tell the camera to do it.But, then you move to another scene, with another dynamic range and you must dive into the menus to change the AEB settings.Dude, use the manual setting and just turn the wheel. Don't cry about your camera. Sure, AEB might come in handy one day, but in all seriousness, manually setting the exposures takes no time at all. I do the following:- compose- focus- check the range (how many stops)- start on the underexposed shots- move the wheel three clicks (shutter speed changes in 1/3rd increments)- take the next shot- continue until I'm doneTurning that wheel takes less than a second. The cameras aren't crippled, you're just dependent on auto settings and won't bother do it yourself.My own opinion.

Although it is your opinion, I've spent plenty of time in the OP explaining why "turning the wheel" and "it only takes a second" are not acceptable to me. If you need clarification, read the op. I see no need to repeat myself. Your opinion does not even acknowledge what I've already addressed so although you are welcome to your opinion, it has little value to me.

I am still not convinced you even understand what this thread is about. Or have even read the thread. Or that you even know what AEB is. And if you do, you're very bad at drawing connections or explaining yourself. I have provided a plethora of concerns here and have been incredibly specific about exactly what my concerns are, and I see no reason to repeat myself. So if you want to be vague and Troll-ish, go somewhere else.

What is so vague about "Use Manual Exposure Mode to take as many frames as your memory card will allow" do you not understand?You don't need to throw a hissy fit and call others names just for lack of understanding.

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