brackteting

Can someone please explain the difference between bracket settings and bracketing.

I don't think my little brain is getting a handle on it.

A friend is helping to understand photography.

He says my photos are really good but that I need to understand the basics also.

I completely agree with him.

I seem to have a good eye, and see things that other people don't.

But this bracketing thing is driving me nuts.

 

I am working with a Canon A-1 that my husband found at a garage sale for $5.00.

 

Any help would be great.

 

Thanks Michele

Hi Michele

 

Exposure bracketing is a simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations. When you expose for a scene, your camera's light meter will select an aperture / shutter speed combination that it believes will give a properly exposed picture.

 

Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera's light meter.

 

The reason you do this is because the camera might have been 'deceived' by the light (too much or too little) available and your main subject may be over- or under-exposed. By taking these three shots, you are making sure that if this were ever the case, then you would have properly compensated for it.

 

As an example, say you are taking a scene where there is an abundance of light around your main subject (for example, at the beach on a sunny day, or surrounded by snow). In this case, using Weighted-Average metering, your camera might be 'deceived' by the abundance of light and expose for it by closing down the aperture and/or using a faster shutter speed (assuming ISO is constant), with the result that the main subject might be under-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight over-exposure, you would in fact be over-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

 

You can read more at <a href="http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_exposureBracketing.html" >photoxels</a>.

I'm not sure that bracketing and bracket settings are two different things. The technique of bracketing means allows you to make sure one of your photographs will come out with a good exposure.

 

For example, let's say you are taking a picture of a person who has half his face in shadow, and half in direct sunlight. The correct exposure for the sunny side of the face might be f 16 at 1/125. But the correct exposure for the shade part might be f 4 at 1/125. You could decide to take the first photo at f 11 at 1/125. Then, you could take the next photo at f 16 at 1/125. Finally, you could take a third photo at f 8 at 1/25. What you have done is take one photo in the "correct" exposure, and then taken one in which you let in more light, and one in which you let in less light. If you think of the first picture as the middle, then the other two form a figurative bracket.

 

If you don't understand about f stops and shutter speed right now, then ignore the technical details above, and just read the last sentence. Bracketing provides a means to take pictures with different exposures so when you expose the film (or look at the digital pictures on your computer), one of them will be right.

 

Keep in mind you can bracket in a number of different ways. For example, if you take a picture of someone backlit in sunlight, you might start by exposing for the shadows, and then work your way up in 1/2 f-stop increments until you expose for one stop below the sunlight. The idea remains the same. You take several pictures to make sure one comes out satisfactorily.

 

By the way, the Canon A-1 camera is a great camera. Don't think you can't take good pictures with it--you can!

Bracketing is the taking of a normal, under, and over exposure of a scene. Bracket setting is how much you under

and over expose.

With negative film you have to make a substantial change in exposure when bracketing. 1/3rd of a stop wouldn't show up on the print to any great degree although you would see a slight difference on the negative. You should always look at the negatives, not the prints, when judging differences in exposure. The printer analyzer would take 1/3rd over and 1/3rd under exposed negatives and "correct" them so they look like the correctly exposed negative.