Trail of Tears, Unto These Hills, Cherokee Historical Society, 2007.

Bracketing your shots is a practice that grew out of necessity. Simply put, you attempt to take multiple exposures of the same setup or shot, with each exposure varying slightly from the others. In the days before you had a digital preview screen on the back of your camera, you had to shoot enough exposures to give yourself a good chance of ending up with a portfolio-worthy shot. Much of my early photo-call practices revolved around two unavoidable facts. First, film came in rolls of a defined length, usually 24 or 36 exposures. Second, it was often several days, if not more than a week, before you would be able to get your slides back from the specialty developer. Add on a few extra days to the darkroom time if you were also shooting with a “push” as discussed in Chapter 7, and the show was most likely struck and gone before you knew if you had anything useful from the shoot.

In order to properly bracket the shots and make sure I didn’t run out of film, I usually planned to do three exposures per setup, and a total of 12 setups. If you loaded your film and tensioned it correctly, you might get an extra shot or two at the end, but, in general, this was a way to ensure that you had enough film, assuming a 36-exposure roll, to get three exposures of each of the planned setups. Now, changing out a roll of film takes a bit of time but isn’t out of the realm of possibilities during a photo-call. You might need to give folks a break for a few minutes and take care of the film change-out, or you could swap to a second pre-loaded camera, and maybe just move the lens over. This is, of course, predicated on having two camera bodies that are identical, or nearly so, in order to preserve a continuity of look across all the shots from the night. Additionally, you now needed to shoot 36 more exposures so that you didn’t waste expensive film. As I mentioned before, Ektachrome 320 is heat sensitive, so you couldn’t just leave a half-finished roll in your camera for a later time…it was important to get it out and off to the developers in a timely manner.

In order to bracket your shots in this situation, you would need to determine the proper aperture and shutter-speed settings for each shot. Once your performers are set, take one exposure “on the meter,” and then usually one shot under-exposed and one shot over-exposed. Perhaps you want to shoot with a constant medium depth-of-field, so you have set your aperture to f/5.6, and your light meter is telling you to set the shutter speed to 1/250. You might then shoot at f/5.6 and 1/500 for your under-exposed shot, and then set your camera again to f/5.6 and 1/125 for your over-exposed shot. Doing all this manually is tedious, prone to error, and takes time. I usually set my camera for the under-exposed shot first, then the one “on the meter,” and finally the over-exposed shot, so that I was only having to turn the shutter speed dial in one direction. This allowed me to keep the camera in position, properly framed, and get my shots all done fairly fast. This practice gives you a range of 2 full stops of light across the three pictures, and you’d have a fairly good chance of capturing an image that has the proper exposure and amount of detail you want to see.

So, what does any of this have to do with our lives in the digital world? I’ll get to that in just a bit, but I want to make sure we have all the foundations laid for the proper use of this technique. There are a number of variables that you can apply to the practice of bracketing, including the number of shots you are taking, the exposure “offset” between each shot, and the starting point for your series of shots. I’ve already explained the most common and basic application of this technique, which is manifested in a series of three exposures, with a full stop of “offset” between them, and with the middle shot centering on the combined settings that the camera’s meter has determined to be the best for the situation. As we learned in Chapter 3, the meter isn’t always right, and we need to be aware of this when bracketing so that we know what adjustments we might need to make to give ourselves the best series of shots to choose from.

I have, on occasion, chosen to bracket with up to five exposures per setup, usually when there is a very broad range of contrast zones present. The loss of details in the shadows versus the possible over-exposure of something very light-colored or white are of concern, and I might want to cover my bases with some extra exposures on the edges of what the meter is telling me. I might also choose to make the offset between exposures smaller, so by shooting a few extra, I am covering a wider range with more “middle ground” to look at. Mechanical cameras can’t really shoot at shutter speeds other than the preset ones built into the camera, without causing possible damage to the shutter curtain mechanism. You can, however, choose an aperture setting somewhere in between the standard ones available on the lens. The standard settings have a detent, or a click you can feel when you adjust the aperture, but it is easy (although not markedly precise) to find a spot somewhere between two standard f-stop settings. This gives you a 1/3- to 1/2-stop (very approximately) “offset” rather than the full-stop offset you will get by going up or down to the next click on the aperture ring.

Figure 13.1: This is the auto-bracket menu button on my camera, which gives you quick access to adjusting the number of shots and exposure offset.

Now, where the DSLR camera really shines is if it has the ability to auto-bracket, meaning that you preset the number of shots you would like to take, the exposure offset between the shots, and finally the order of the exposures, and then when you are all set with your camera, you just have to hold down the shutter release button and let the camera go to work. The camera will automatically determine the optimum settings based on your program selection (usually aperture priority or shutter priority), and then proceed to take as many exposures as you have asked, with the proper exposure offset between them. As with many settings, some cameras may have this feature buried in a menu, or it may be quickly accessible through a feature button.

In Figure 13.2, you can see that it is currently set for three shots with a 1.0-stop offset. My camera has the ability to shoot one, two, three, five, seven, or nine frames, and can use an offset of .3, .7, or 1.0 stop. I have occasionally used the five-frame option, but can’t see using it much, and probably would never use the seven-frame or nine-frame options. The main reason is that I’m going to end up with far too many files to go through. We will discuss file formats more in Chapter 14, but for now, let me also share with you the fact that I have my camera set up to save two copies of every exposure I take, one in JPEG and one in a version of RAW. That means if I shoot with a three-frame setup for bracketing, I’m actually saving six computer files. It suddenly adds up very quickly in terms of storage space and sorting time. You may also ask, “Why should I bother to bracket when I can just look at the preview screen on the back of my camera?” I still bracket for several reasons:

1. I don’t trust the little screen to show me all the finer details, especially in the darker parts of the photo.
2. I don’t want to take the time to look at each shot on the back of the camera and then have to make decisions about adjusting the exposure…that just takes too long.
3. I don’t want to get home, download my pictures, and suddenly discover someone’s hand was moving in the shot, and I don’t have any fallback options.
4. With a DSLR, it’s so darn easy and fast, and it doesn’t cost me any extra money to do it.

Figure 13.2: This is the auto-bracket menu on my camera, where you can see the exposure range and number of shots selected. These can be adjusted on the fly with the two dials embedded in the shooting grip.

The following series of photographs is from a production I designed of La Voix Humaine. As you can see, the performer is dressed in a light-colored gown, and due to the sparse and presentational style of the scenery, there is a great deal of black in the shot. The meter is going to want to open up a great deal to try and expose for the overall field of values in the photograph. As is often the case, I have chosen to run my camera with a –1 stop EV compensation setting. I wanted to ensure I got a nice range of possible images to choose from, so I chose a five-shot bracket. All shots were taken with the ISO set to 800, and white balance corrected to 3200°Kelvin, and were all influenced by the EV compensation. Since the camera was set to aperture priority, the auto-bracketing feature changed the shutter speed, and because I had selected an exposure offset of .7 rather than 1.0, the camera adjusted the shutter speed to increments of 7/10th of a stop, leading to some odd numbers that aren’t normally in the list of shutter speeds. The meter was telling the camera that f/2.8 @ 1/60th was the proper exposure, and then it took a set at +/− .7 stops and +/− 1.4 stops, yielding five exposures over about three stops of range.

Figure 13.3:This shot was taken with an aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/160th.

I happen to prefer the fourth shot in the series (Figure 13.6), mainly because there is a far better sense of depth between the black background and the performer’s hair. She is distinct from her surroundings and yet still “in the world” of the scenery. I find that the last, and brightest, shot (Figure 13.7) makes her pop out too much from the set, and her hair is too blue. Now, if you recall, the meter has been altered by the –1 stop EV compensation, so in reality, the camera should have wanted to set the camera for an aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/30th rather than 1/60th. That means that my preferred exposure out of this series, the one that ended up shot at 1/40th, is about 1/3 of a stop under-exposed. I also feel like this image is the best representation of what I saw from the tech table when I was writing the cues, which is ultimately the goal with all this.

Figure 13.4: This shot was taken with an aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/100th.

By choosing more or less shots, you give yourself more or less options for a shot that will work for you, and by choosing smaller or larger “offsets,” you are determining the fact that you may be choosing from widely spaced differences in exposure or closely spaced options. It really depends on each shot, and what you are trying to get out of the shots you have chosen to take. Finally, some cameras may even offer you the ability to choose the order with which the shots are taken. I usually leave mine set to go in order from most under-exposed through most over-exposed, but often you can also select the option to shoot “on the meter” first, then one under and one over, if you were doing three shots. I prefer them to be in order of exposure, as it makes it easier to look through them on my computer and compare adjacent exposures, rather than having to jump around. Ultimately, once the shot is taken, I tend to care little about the associated numbers or settings, or even which shot the camera thought was “on the meter”…I am now just going by eye to determine which one is the best representation of what I created.

Figure 13.5: This shot was taken with an aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/60th.

Figure 13.6: This shot was taken with an aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/40th.

I almost always bracket with the camera set to aperture priority. There are two main reasons for this, and a caveat. First, I am usually shooting fairly dark situations, and want to take advantage of my “fast” prime lenses. I am making a choice to go for more light-gathering ability over depth-of-field considerations, so I would prefer that the three shots I take don’t have a varying depth-of-field across the three exposures. The second reason has to do with the architecture of your lens. DSLRs of today have the ability to alter the shutter speed a great deal, and have a lot wider range of shutter speeds to pick from, especially when we go toward the longer-opening end of the spectrum. This isn’t the case when you are dealing with the aperture of the lens, which is mechanically limited to a certain maximum and minimum aperture. You may find that if you are trying to bracket with shutter priority set, your camera might not be able to take the shots you want. If your lens has a maximum aperture of f/2.8, and you have set your camera to a shutter speed of 1/500th, and your camera’s meter has determined that the best exposure for the shot you want to take is f/2.8 and 1/500th, then you will be stuck. Your camera will be able to take the shot that is “on the meter,” and a shot that is 1 stop under-exposed at f/4 and 1/500th, but your lens is incapable of opening up any further than f/2.8 for the over-exposed shot. To rescue this situation, you would have to change your shutter speed to 1/250^th and let the camera bracket from there. It would then be able to choose f/4 as the shot “on the meter,” and one over-exposed shot at f/2.8 and one under-exposed shot at f/5.6. The caveat to be aware of is that when shooting a fairly dark scene in aperture priority, your camera might need to run the shutter speed out to very long exposure times. If you are listening to your camera, you can hear the mechanical noise made by the swinging motion of the mirror and the shutter curtain as they move to expose the image sensor. Usually with a three-shot bracket, you might hear the camera go “click…click, click…click, click…..click” as it moves through the shorter shutter speed exposures to the longer ones. On occasion, when shooting a really dark shot, even with my lens set to a very wide maximum aperture, I have been surprised to hear my camera go “click……click, click…………click, click………… (holding my breath even more)…………click.” That extended series might include some shots taken at half a second and possibly multiple seconds. Usually that means they won’t be terribly useful, since it’s so hard to handhold that long. Even if you are pretty steady, it just won’t have the crispness that the other shots might. If you are using a tripod, monopod, or one of my strap, bracing, and breathing techniques, you might still have some motion or sway from the subject, but at least you can eliminate your contributions in that regard. Just remember to keep squeezing the shutter release button until the camera has finished its run of shots. If you let go too soon, it might shorten the exposure of the last shot, or it might not take the whole sequence. If I’m shooting a three-shot run, but let go after the second shot, my camera doesn’t reset… it waits until I hit the shutter release button again, and then it dutifully finishes that run by taking the third of the three shots. Not a big deal, but I just need to pay attention, and know that I haven’t gotten the full bracketed run of what I wanted from the previous setup, and that I don’t yet have a full run of the setup I’m now looking at.

Figure 13.7: This shot was taken with an aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/25th.

Interestingly enough, I figured out a neat trick as I was working on taking some pictures with another DSLR. I wanted to bracket with that camera as well, but it wouldn’t allow me to set up a –1 stop, 0, +1 stop bracketing scenario. It would only allow –2 stops, –1 stop, 0 or 0, +1 stop, +2 stops. I was using this camera to take pictures of my own camera for other parts of this book, so it was a loaner and I was trying to figure out its menus when I suddenly realized, “Oh, I can just use the EV compensation feature to move the range covered by this odd bracketing up or down a stop.” So, I set the camera up to have a –1 stop EV compensation, and set the auto-bracketing up to use the 0, +1 stop, +2 stops scale, which meant that I ended up with an actual set of exposures that was –1 stop, 0, and +1 stop. If I’d already wanted to run with a –1 stop EV compensation, I could have set the camera up for –2 stops of EV compensation, or just used the –2 stops, –1 stop, 0 bracketing option. I am regularly thankful that all these settings are essentially interchangeable! With my usual –1 stop of EV compensation, I am regularly getting a bracket that is –2, –1, and 0, and this has served my needs well.

Figure 13.8: The bottom part of the large dial here is marked S, Cl, and Ch, which refer to the shooting mode.

There is one additional dial that I need to ensure is properly set for my auto-bracketing to work correctly, and you may need to set a similar option. On the top left of my camera there is a dial underneath some of the other buttons, which controls the shooting mode.

When set to S, it will shoot a single shot each time the shutter release button is pressed. When set to Cl, it will operate in “continuous low-speed” mode, and will shoot all of the exposures I’ve selected in the auto-bracketing menu with just one press of the shutter release button. This has to be a “press-and-hold” action, but it will stop when it hits the third or fifth shot in the series. The Ch represents “continuous high-speed” mode, which does the same thing; it just operates faster between shots. The Cl and Ch settings are useful when you want to shoot a bunch of frames really quickly, such as at a sporting event, but when auto-bracketing is engaged, it’s not as important, since both will just shoot what you’ve asked for and then stop. Once you release the shutter release button at the end of the set of exposures, it’s all set and ready to take the next set of bracketed exposures.

The cover image for this chapter was taken during my first photo-call with a DSLR, and I wouldn’t have been able to successfully capture all the diverse moments in this show without the aid of the auto-bracketing feature. This show uses a great deal of atmospherics, and includes lots of dynamic movement and energy. I set the camera to five exposures, since I was new to it, and just shot like crazy. Luckily, I was able to capture a few really great moments. I bought the camera a few weeks before I went down to work on the show, but didn’t have time to read the manual until a few days before the shoot, at which point I committed myself to a full day or two of study in order to get comfortable with it. According to the metadata, the chapter image was the 657th taken by the camera since new, so I must have shot a lot of practice shots beforehand. Figuring out how to manipulate the buttons and dials took some time, but was far easier due to the solid understanding I had of the Exposure Triangle relationships. As long as you have that down, and have a good idea in your head about what’s going to happen when you press the shutter release, you can move between brands of gear with relative ease.