On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:47:21 -0700, "RG" wrote:


I've never used the bracketing, but I'm going to give it a shot with three
exposures. Next question,
do I set it for AE and Flash, AE only, Flash only, or White Balance
bracketing. From what you've
said, I'm going to guess AE and Flash. I've set the EV step to 1.

Question, in what mode are you shooting, A.S,M,P? I've taken a couple
shots, the camera is taking
three exposures, but I can see no difference in the shots - using the
camera's monitor.

1. Set menu item e5 to AE only. Page 166 of the manual.

2. Set menu item e7 to UnderMTROver. This will shoot the sequence
as -EV, 0EV, +EV, assuming no exposure compensation has been dialed in. I
prefer this sequence over the default of MTRUnderOver. Page 167

3. Set menu item e8 to Manual Value Select. Page 167

4. Set menu item b3 to 1/3 step, which will allow you to set exposure
adjustments at 1/3 stop intervals. Menu item b4 should be set the same.
Page 154

5. Set the shooting mode dial on the top left of the camera to either CL or
CH. I use CH. This will allow the camera to shoot the entire bracketed
sequence with a single press and hold of the shutter release. Page 26.

6. While holding down the BKT button, rotate the main command dial (on the
back of the camera) to set the number of shots for the sequence, in your
example, 3. While holding down the BKT button, rotate the sub-command dial
(on the front of the camera) to set the exposure increment, in your example,
1. Page 73

You should now be set up to auto-bracket a 3-shot sequence at a 1EV
interval. Compose a shot and hold the shutter release down. The shutter
should trip 3 times and then stop. When you review the photos on the LCD
screen, you will notice that one is probably too dark and underexposed, the
next one should be just about right, an the third one will likely be too
bright and over exposed. You can confirm the bracketing by selecting the
shooting data page 1 review screen. There you will see in the exposure
compensation field as -1.0, 0.0 and 1.0 respectively for the -1EV, 0EV and
+1EV shots. Page 99.

I almost always shoot in (A) aperture priority mode. My default aperture is
f8, and I typically will only change it if I am trying to either limit or
expand the depth of field. When in this mode and auto-bracketing, the
aperture is constant among the bracketed set, what changes is the shutter
speed. I also might adjust the aperture if I'm trying for an effect using
shutter speed. Let's say I'm shooting a water fall or moving water in a
stream, and the question is whether I want to stop the action of the water
with a fast shutter speed or blur the water by dragging the shutter with a
slower speed. For the former I would open the lens wider which would result
in a bracketed set with a faster range of shutter speeds. For the latter, I
would stop the lens down (as well as adding a polarizer or neutral density
filter to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor), resulting in a set
with longer shutter speeds.

To turn the auto Bracketing off, all you have to do is the hold the BKT
button and rotate the main command dial so the number of shots is set to 0.
You don't have to alter any other settings. To turn it back on, just set to
the number of shots you want again. I leave my camera set to CH (continuous
high shooting). You quickly learn to press and release the shutter button
quickly when you only want a single shot, but you always have the continuous
option available, which is great if you want to capture something in motion,
say a heron taking flight while you're sitting on the boat watching the
world go by.

The other thing to understand about auto-bracketing is that it works in
conjunction with any exposure compensation you might have dialed in with +/-
button. With exposure compensation set at 0, your example of a 3 shot, 1EV
set would meter out at -1EV, 0EV and +1 EV. But let's say that conditions
were such that you'd prefer to favor the scene to be underexposed versus
overexposed. You could dial in a -1EV exposure compensation with the +/-
button, and then your 3 shot bracket sequence would meter out at -2EV, -1EV
and 0EV. I do this quite a bit.

Happy shooting.

Russ


Sorry not to get back sooner, but I found out that all this playing around consumes battery power. I
may have to put an extra battery on my Christmas list.

I *really* appreciate your help on this. I've got everything set, and now can see some differences
in the shots. I'm wondering though - yesterday I was getting three shots, but could hear the camera
'take' only one. I had left the shooting mode dial on 'S', but was still getting three shots. I must
have changed something though, because now if I put it back on 'S' I get only a single shot. I'll
have to look into.

I've got to take this thing outside tomorrow and do some more playing.

Thanks again, Russ. Your help is great!

John