May I ask why you take 18 shots? Do you pick out certain ones to run thru your HDR processor?
I take multiple shots so that can have better control of the dynamic range
That's why the shots are are spaced at .5ev half step
So you pick a subset of those to run thru your HDR processor? Surely you don't use them all.
No I do not pick which exposures
I use all the shot's typically on most cameras AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) is limited to 3 shot's example EV2MAX +2,0,-2
so what I do with the promote is set it to a higher EV4MAX and set the stepping to .5 aka Half step so now my shots are
+ 4,3.5,3,2.5,2,1.5,1,.5,0,.5,1,1.5,2,2.5,3,3.5,4 -
If I increased it to a full EV1
then it will be
+ 4,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,4 - = 9 shot's
Sometime I do this sometimes I do half step other times I might just do something odd ball like + 2,1.5,1,0,.5,1,1.5,2,2.5,3,3.5,4,4.5 - This would be an example perhaps of capturing a night scene of like a street lamp where you want to capture the light but work it down so that the street lamp is not blown out and you've capture the coil the radiance but with greater detail essentially you can see the bulb of the street lamp if it had a clear glass shell.
It really comes down to control over the scene going back to the + 2,0,2- (3 Shot's) EV but if I did + 2,1.5,1,.5,0,.5,1,1.5,2 - (9 Shot's) I would have captured the same dynamic range but with more control when processing due to having half stop exposures the image result would benefit from cleaner noise reduction, better sky are dynamic control,halo reduction, etc... I can go grunge with better control of colors which on grunge images the colors tend to shift creating sometimes like a magenta/blueish area let's say on a rusty area or old rusted car etc.. you get the idea.
I am not an expert on this but this so far what I have learned from the benefit of using more exposures and sometimes going above EV2 but trust me EV2 is a good range for most scenes I am just getting my feet wet to using more exposures and going higher then ev2
* See winter Walkway for two answer response you will see a 3 aeb shot and also the answer to our discussions about using brush *