The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/450D Companion

CHAPTER 7

EXPOSURE BRACKETING

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Exposure Bracketing

Now that I’ve thrown all this exposure theory at you and loaded up your head

with all these things to remember, it’s time to learn the easy solution to the whole

exposure thing: Rather than worry about trying to nail the exposure with one

shot, just shoot the same shot a few times with different exposure settings. is

process is called bracketing.

Bracketing is very simple. You shoot one shot at the camera’s recommended me-

tering, then another shot underexposed, and another shot overexposed. How

much to over or underexpose depends on how tricky the scene is and how cau-

tious you are.

For example, if you’re in a situation where you’re not sure of the exposure—may-

be there’s a big mix of bright and dark tones—then you might want to bracket

your shots. Or, if you’re shooting a very bright or very dark object and aren’t sure

how to expose to properly render the tones, then bracketing can be the answer.

With exposure compensation, it’s very easy to bracket. Shoot a shot, set exposure

compensation down, shoot another, and then dial it up and shoot a third.

Here’s a bracketed set of the same scene. e left-most image was shot as the

camera metered it, the second image is underexposed by 1 stop, and the third

image is overexposed by one stop.

Bracketing does not make you a wimpy photographer! It does not mean you don’t

know what ...