- OK, we're ready to choose our settings
in order to capture the full dynamic range of this space.
So the first thing I always recommend to do
is to meter with your spot meter in the camera
for the highlights, and then meter separately
for the shadows in the scene.
So what that means is,
the first thing that I'll do is go over to this window,
which is the brightest part of the scene,
and I'll have my camera set to spot meter,
and I'm just going to use the light meter in the camera
to determine the shutter speed,
and even take a test shot, usually.
And with the test shot,
I can look at the LCD screen
and just get a quick visual check
to make sure that I've captured the highlights properly.
To do that, I just check the histogram
that nothing is pushed up
against the right side of the histogram.
I'll do the same things for the shadows.
So I'm just going to choose a dark corner,
such as this one,
and again just use the spot meter in the camera.
It's telling me it's about two seconds exposure.
Since I don't care about camera shake,
I'm just going to take my test shot, hand-held.
And again, do a quick visual check to make sure
that that looks good, and it does.
I don't see any dark shadows that are lost there.
So now I know that I can capture the entire scene
from two seconds exposure to 1/25 of a second exposure.
Now all I need to do is set my camera
in order to capture that using auto-exposure bracketing.
There's a few ways to do that.
The first way I recommend
to determine the bracketing sequence
is a way that anybody can do on their camera right here,
just using what we have.
And that's counting the stops using the dial.
So I have it set to the longest shutter speed,
two seconds, and I can count single stops
by using my dial on this camera.
Almost all cameras are the same
where it's three clicks for one stop.
So I'm just going to count and start from two seconds
and I promise to show you a little more elegant way
to do this coming up.
Two seconds, so I just rotate it
until I get to 1/25 of a second.
Three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine stops.
So from two seconds to 1/25 of a second is nine stops.
Now I can set this camera,
in particular it requires that I set the middle exposure
and then I set to capture nine at a time,
so I just count right back.
Nine, to the middle one will be five,
so eight, seven, six, five.
It also gives me 1/8 of a second.
So I'm ready to go as soon as I turn on bracketing,
nine shots, all set.
OK, that manual method of choosing your bracketing sequence
is great, and it's the way I've done it for a long time,
but it's not always needed.
For one thing, after some time,
it's going to become second nature
and it's going to become very easy.
But there's also a new tool out
that will calculate exactly the brackets needed
and it'll even tell you the center exposure
which most cameras need in order to use
the auto-exposure bracketing in them.
So I'm using this right now on my phone.
It's not an app yet,
it's currently on the HDRsoft web page
and it's a really great little tool,
where I can put in those shutter speeds
that we just figured.
So I'm going to go ahead and put in the two seconds
for the shadows, and the 1/25 of a second for the highlights
and this part is where I tell the capabilities of my camera.
So if my camera is capable of nine bracket frames,
with an EV spacing of one.
Now I tap, get exposures,
and down below it lists each of the exposures needed,
it even tells me my center exposure,
so I know I need to set it at 1/8 of a second.
So capturing the entire dynamic range is the real key here.
A lot of people just take a general reading
and then set their camera to take over- and under-stops.
But using this method is going to guarantee
that you really cover the dynamic range,
and tools like this are really great to help you do that.