Is exposure bracketing still useful with digital cameras and RAW editing?
Asked 11/11/2017
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My camera can automatically bracket exposures, and I often use 3 shots at ±2/3 EV around the meter’s suggested exposure. But when I edit RAW files, I can usually recover exposure, shadows, highlights, and color well enough afterward. So I’m wondering whether bracketing is still worth using in digital photography. Does it provide real benefits beyond what can be done in post-processing, or is it mostly unnecessary unless the scene is especially difficult? I’m also weighing the downsides: more files, more card space used, and more shutter actuations.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
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Particularly if you're shooting RAW, you're correct that two-thirds of a stop's worth of bracketing doesn't get you that much. Two-thirds of a stop is something you can get in post-processing with minimal to no loss of information, particularly on a fairly low dynamic range scene where you get the exposure vaguely right in the first place.
However, try a more challenging scene for a camera: something like a sunset with a much larger dynamic range. In this case, it may well be that:
- The camera doesn't get the central exposure you want right - it has no real way of knowing whether to expose for the dark foreground, the bright background or something else.
- The dynamic range of the image just isn't something the sensor can capture.
For both these problems, bracketing may help - the first by just making it more likely that you can an exposure vaguely close to what you want, and the second by enabling you to do HDR or similar with the set of images. However, for both of these you'll want a larger bracketing amount than two-thirds of a stop - I'd start with two stops and work from there. But equally I wouldn't leave bracketing on all the time; just turn it on when you know it's going to be useful.
Of course, all this assumes you're using a large sensor camera; if you're using a phone camera with a tiny sensor and maybe only JPEG output, getting your exposure right in camera becomes a lot more important.
Originally by user11371. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user11371
8y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—bracketing is still useful, but not for every shot. If you shoot RAW and the scene has modest contrast, a small bracket like ±2/3 EV often adds little, because that adjustment is usually recoverable in post with minimal quality loss.
Bracketing becomes valuable when:
- the camera meter may choose the wrong exposure for the scene
- the scene has high dynamic range, such as sunsets or bright skies with dark foregrounds
- you want multiple exposures for HDR blending
In those cases, one exposure may preserve highlights better while another keeps more shadow detail, and a single frame may not hold everything the sensor can capture.
So the practical answer is: don’t leave bracketing on all the time just by habit. For normal RAW shooting, it’s often unnecessary, especially at only ±2/3 EV. Turn it on when the light is tricky, the contrast is extreme, or you know you may want to blend exposures later.
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