Bracket with three shots, or five?
Q I read in Tech Check that you always use three bracketed frames, so why wouldn’t you use five bracketed frames for even more detail?
Tom Osman
A Over the years, I’ve found that three different exposures, even on exceptionally contrasty scenes, usually gives you enough dynamic range to create well-exposed final images from the frames, as long as you are shooting raw format rather than jpegs. If you’re shooting jpegs, then a five-stop exposure range might be necessary when the contrast range is extreme. However, my advice would always be to shoot raws anyway.
The key to capturing all the information you need is within the amount of exposure you are bracketing. First of all, you don’t always need to bracket frames since the dynamic range of a single raw file gives you an amount of editing flexibility, although pulling details out of deep shadow can lower image quality if you’re not careful. When you do opt to bracket, then a standard three-stop bracket of -1, 0, +1 will give you enough information across the three frames to cover most situations.
When you are faced with a massive brightness range, for example, when shooting directly into the sun,
