It seems like summer is just getting started. The calendar tells me it is over halfway gone. We are trying our best to take advantage of what summer has left to offer. No better way than an evening hike in the hills near our house. As you know, I have been putting the Nikon D5000 through its paces, and I am pretty darn surprised by it. If you can get over the fact that it has only one command dial and get used to doing your adjustments in the menu system, you have yourself a very capable camera. One thing that I have been wanting to test is the exposure bracketing feature. The D5000 will only allow 3 brackets, but the nice thing is you can bracket by 2 full stops. 2 stops is usually enough for most of my HDR work. For very high contrast scenes (think super bright light out the window of a room) you need more than 2 stops on either side of the anchor. However, for most of my bracket sequences, the D5000 is proving to be a great companion.
For the non-photographers out there, that interested in knowing more about this ‘photographer speak’, feel free to drop me a line. I would be happy to help you get started making images!
Capture Notes:
Nikon D5000
Nikkor 16-85 VR II
Gitzo Traveler
Lexar UDMA
Processing Notes:
Capture – 3 images @ 2ev
Photomatix – HDR/Tonemapping
Photoshop – Global curves adjustment
Nik Color Efex Pro – Soft Focus (experimenting a bit with it for that dreamy look)
Photoshop – Selective saturation boost
Photoshop – Selective saturation cut
Sized for web
LightAsMagic.com
Justin…. First, nice photo!
Your comment on bracketing. I had always wondered what extra you got out of HDR processing by doing 7 X 1ev. when shooting cloudy, or just sunlight. Now, you make this comment about 3X 2ev being good enough unless doing the indoor/outdoor shot — (where you clearly need about – 5EV to capture the window portions).
So… “is there any advantage to doing more bracketing for normal scenes?”
The only time I wonder is when shooting bright clouds…
– Rob
PS: I bought my wife a Panasonic SZ7, and guess what? It brackets!
Howdy Rob…
Quick bracketing recap…
1) Dark room –> Bright outside : I need about 9 stops. With my D700 I shoot 9 images @ 1ev.
2) Sunrise/Sunset and partially lit foreground –> 6 stops, sometimes 7 works. With my D700 I normally shoot 9 images @ 1ev and choose the 5-7 images that are free of any clipping. Now, with the D5000, I can get 5 stops by simply shooting 3 frames (which its AutoBracketing is capable of) @ -2,0,+2. It seems to be working pretty good.
As for the benefit of more shots over the same EV range….I find that I generate much less noise in the final Tonemapped image.
What does the SZ7 bracket at? I love my old TZ4!
Justin:
Yeah, good recap! Perversely, my personal preference for HDR’s are cloudy — low contrast — or uniformly lit indoors…
The SZ7 will do 3 shots, EV can be set 0 to +- 2EV I really like the camera — though you wouldn’t want to use it in low light… But you can control it in manual — it just doesn’t’ have much of a range — Other than the wide-tele of course! 25mm — 300+ equiv.
– Rob