When it comes to bracketing images, I do things differently than the standard process of balancing to the center of the light meter and firing off a bracket. I know that is how everyone is taught, and you may ask yourself, what other way is there? Let me explain.

Before we begin, we need to clearly define the intended purpose of the bracketed sequence for the rest of this to make any sense. To define the purpose, you need to understand my workflow and how I process images. I blend exposures as smart objects using Photoshop and luminosity masks, starting from a single base exposure. This base exposure is usually 1/3rd to 2/3rds overexposed from the light meter reading in the camera. Yes, you read that right. I am working off of an overexposed image intentionally. It is exposed to the right (ETTR). I bring the image into Photoshop as a smart object and open the RAW editing panel. I then reduce my exposure slider and adjust my contrast, highlights, shadows, etc. to balance the exposure properly. Using a combination of luminosity masks, dodging and burning, and the underexposed images from the bracket I bring the image to life. Editing this way allows me to recover shadow detail properly while protecting highlight detail.

Achieving the proper base exposure is critical to the rest of the workflow. Without a proper base exposure, the rest will not work. To accomplish this, I shoot in RAW, use the camera in full manual, expose to the right, and bracket the sequence to control every aspect of the process - including the bracket. 

When I am in the field capturing images I am exposing to the right but pushing the image slightly past the clipping point. That is overexposing to the point where I barely begin to clip the image highlights on the histogram and in playback. The resulting single image allows me to capture enough detail in the shadows to where I do not need an additional overexposed image. I can darken the ETTR shot that preserved the shadow detail. However, capturing images this way means clipping some of your highlight data. Thus, a bracketed sequence is necessary to ensure that highlight information is preserved in darker frames. More importantly, capturing images this way preserves the true highlight data in the darker frames, but more on that shortly.

If you bracket from an image shot to the right, you will end up with an overexposed shot that will likely destroy detail and color and a darker shot that is not dark enough to recover the highlight details properly. This is why the combination of ETTR and modified bracketing is critical. The goal is to end up with the ETTR shot as our overexposed shot in the bracket sequence, with two subsequent darker shots accompanying it. This widens our dynamic range, assists in color preservation, and protects our highlight data with two subsequent darker shots. Before we get into the details, we need to review how you expose to the right.

It is important to note here - you must shoot RAW for this to work. If you are shooting JPEG this approach will not work!

EXPOSING TO THE RIGHT

Above is an example of an image captured using modified bracketing. You can see the complete sequence of images and their corresponding histograms. The histogram and the images are straight out of camera - no adjustments have been applied to these images. The exposed to the right image is our main focus for now, this image was shot to the right in camera on location. Notice the data on the right side of the histogram. It is pushed as close as possible to the right, but not touching the right side. This is what you want your histogram to look like when out in the field. It should be toward the right side but not peaked above the top of the histogram and should not touch the side. If either occurs, you have pushed the exposure too far and need to adjust. See the outlined squares in the histogram's top left and right corners, these indicate clipping. In this instance, we have pushed the image as far right as possible without clipping data. If you do clip a small amount of data that is ok as long as you are bracketing the sequence! Do not clip the data if you intend to use a single image.

ETTR can be used in a single image application. You need to be mindful of the histogram and allow for “breathing room” when capturing single photos using this technique. Take a look at the example above. We have the single image straight out of camera (SOOC). There is much more space on the right side of the histogram than there is in the first example. This is because I did not have a bracket set, therefore I am attempting to capture all data possible in a single photo without clipping. In the second example you can see the same image with minor adjustments applied. Notice how the highlights are recovered properly and the shadows still have detail? That is the purpose of ETTR, but we can take it a step further if we are bracketing.

The purpose of exposing to the right is to get as much data on the histogram's right side as possible without clipping the image. In our application minor clipping is acceptable because we are bracketing the shot, the bracket will recover the lost highlight details. It is important to recognize that color is entirely dependent on proper exposure. Overexposing an image too far will cause the colors to desaturate. Underexposing an image too far will cause the colors to be oversaturated. Pushing the image to its clipping point allows us to walk the fine line between both, including bracketing allows us to do so safely. To do this accurately, I find the clipping point of the image and begin my work from there.

FINDING THE CLIPPING POINT

The clipping point can be defined as the highest point from 0 on the light meter that we can push the exposure to before we begin losing detail in the image - specifically our highlights. You do this by pushing a single exposure as close to the right of the histogram as possible by slightly overexposing the shot beyond 0 on your light meter reading. This is done before turning bracketing on to help you determine the light in the scene. I find the clipping point using two methods. The first is using live view and watching my histogram. As I adjust my exposure settings I am watching the right side of the histogram which indicates the brightest areas in my scene.

The second is by capturing single images slightly above the 0 reading of the light meter and using “blinkies” in playback as I like to call them. That is, your camera “blinks” the overexposed areas of the photo in playback showing you where you have clipped the highlights. I shoot one to two-thirds of a stop above the zero reading (overexposed), then adjust by 1/3rd up or down from that point to dial in the amount of “blinkies” I see on the back of the camera. When I see that minor highlight areas of the scene are blinking, I know I have found the clipping point. It is important to note here that you do not want to clip heavily, just a little - you do not want your entire scene blinking at you. My general rule is to achieve just enough clipping to show up in 10% of the photo or less. We want to overexpose the shot, but we need to be mindful of the data being clipped in the scene. In the example shown in this section, you can see that our clipping point is identified as 1 & 1/3rd of a stop above 0 on the light meter.

Once we know what our clipping point is, we can use modified bracketing. The goal of modified bracketing is to set up the sequence so the shot that is just barely clipping becomes our overexposed shot in the sequence. Thus creating two darker shots to preserve the highlight detail in the image, one underexposed image and another that I refer to as the “safety” frame. Essentially the base underexposed shot is what we will combine with our overexposed shot to blend highlights back into the scene. The “safety” shot is there to recover the detail in the brightest areas of the scene if needed.

Before we move into the modified bracket we need to look at a normal bracket, which I refer to as a standard bracket. Remember, a bracketed sequence adjusts your shutter speed across a set series of images. The sequence is the amount of images to be captured, the interval is the stops of light between the images in the sequence.

THE STANDARD BRACKET

Using a standard bracket we center our exposure at 0 on the light meter and capture a sequence of images from that point, 2 stops up, 2 stops down. Our base exposure is noted by the green dash at 0, our over and underexposed shots are the red dashes at +2 and -2. Normally we would fire off the bracket and move on. However we do not know the clipping point in our scene, thus we do not know if our bracket was effective at all in protecting the highlights and recovering the shadows. A standard bracket is based on the camera's ability to meter the scene. The camera is not sentient and cannot interpret the dynamic range like you can. Have you ever captured a bracketed sequence only to come home and realize that the overexposed image is way too bright and the underexposed image is not dark enough to properly recover the highlights?

Modified bracketing solves this by identifying our clipping point, or where we begin to lose data, and using that information to set our 0 point. Thus eliminating unnecessary clipping on the overexposed shot and providing two underexposed shots that protect and preserve the brightest highlight details in the scene as mentioned earlier.

THE MODIFIED BRACKET

To do this properly, we need to understand where to place our 0 point in the bracket. Take a look at our clipping point in this example, it is the same shot as above but compared this time to a modified bracket. The clipping point is 1 and 1/3rd of a stop above our base exposure. A standard bracket is going to shoot 2/3rds of a stop beyond that, as shown by the red dash at +2. This means that we are going to essentially destroy a full 2/3rds of a stop of data that will more than likely prove unrecoverable, or at the very least simply become bad data. This also means that if our overexposed shot is 2/3rds beyond “good data”, so is our underexposed shot - meaning we may not be able to properly recover our highlights in the scene. The overexposed shot will grab plenty of detail in the shadows, possibly even too much,  but we are risking highlight recovery on our underexposed image. If the highlights are destroyed by our overexposed image, and the underexposed image does not have enough data to properly recover them either, the shot is lost!

Once we find our clipping point, assuming your camera is set to 1/3rd stop increments, you are going to reduce your exposure by two stops. Shooting in manual mode, that is six clicks down from the clipping point you identified previously on your shutter speed dial if you are shooting at 2-stop intervals. For example, if your clipping point is at 1/8th of a second, you would drop two stops and set your 0 point or base exposure to 1/30th of a second. This sets your base exposure as your dark frame, the underexposed shot as your “safety frame” and the ETTR shot as your overexposed image.

Looking at the modified bracketing sequence provided, we identified our clipping point at 1 1/3rd of a stop above 0 in the standard bracket. We then dropped six clicks, or two stops from that point setting our base exposure on the camera to 2/3rds of a stop below 0. We then start our bracket from that point effectively adjusting our entire bracket by 2/3rds, the same 2/3rds that we would have lost in the standard bracket.

THE MODIFIED BRACKET IN PRACTICE

Lets look at this in practice so that you can see the actual results. The three images above were captured using a modified bracket, it just so happens to be the same bracket example that we have been working from this entire time. The clipping point in the image was 1 and 1/3rd above 0 in the scene, had I shot a standard bracket we would have been off by 2/3rds of a stop of light. That does not seem like much until you look closer. Do you see a difference in the highlights between the safety frame and the dark frame?

Do you see it? If not, look at the examples below. See that bright band of light in the clouds? Believe it or not, that is clipped! Remember when I mentioned that color is dependent on proper exposure? That band of light right there will never match the example in the safety frame. Why is that? It is desaturated because the dynamic range is beyond what the camera can capture. The data is lost! If we had shot a standard bracket here, the data would have been off by another 2/3rds in the wrong direction. The dark frame would have been our base dark exposure and the data would have been lost. This is why modified bracketing is critical.

By using modified bracketing we are essentially pushing the camera sensor to its maximum dynamic range from the brightest clipping point to the darkest clipping point. That is the beauty of the modified bracket, all possible data is captured and if done properly, you will barely clip and have the complete dynamic range of the scene in three images. Lets take a look at our first example so that you can see a full histogram readout.

Notice the underexposed image is pushed to the left, however it is not clipping. Our base image in the middle is balanced, there is no clipping and all the image information is evenly distributed between the shadows, midtones, and highlights. Finally, the ETTR image is pushed as close to the right as we can get without significant clipping. We have captured the full dynamic range of the scene between three images using modified bracketing. Had this been done with a standard bracket we would have clipped the highlights and lost our ability to recover highlights in our darker frames.

ADJUSTING THE MODIFIED BRACKET

This can be adjusted to fit different shooting scenarios and situations. If you find yourself in a situation that requires more dynamic range maybe a 3-shot sequence is not the best choice. The process applies to a 5-shot sequence or even a 9-shot sequence.

Whether you are doing a 3-shot bracket or a 5-shot bracket does not matter as long as you have properly set your 0 point. Generally, I find that three-shot brackets with two-stop intervals are more than enough for most scenes.

If you are shooting something much brighter than the rest of the scene such as a sunstar, the moon, or are in a situation that requires extreme dynamic range it can be beneficial to go down an extra six clicks when doing a 5-shot sequence. This will set your brightest shot at your clipping point and you will have four subsequent darker images. Remember though, that is twelve clicks total down from your clipping point instead of six but only when doing a five image bracket. An example of this is provided at the bottom of the bracketed sequences.

You can see by the example provided that our darkest shots have increased while our “overexposed” shot is still the ETTR image. Shooting a scene this way will prevent the brightest parts of the image from overexposing as you are a full 8 stops below the clipping point in the scene.

The only variable in the sequence is the stop intervals involved in creating the images. If you are shooting at one-stop intervals, you would find your clipping point and then reduce it by one stop, or three clicks. If you are shooting at 3-stop intervals you would find your clipping point and then reduce by three stops, or nine clicks.

CLICKS

To help you remember the “clicks” for each interval, I created a small visual aid for you to use in the field. The light meter shown outlines the stops and clicks associated with them. Feel free to save this visual aid to your phone for use in the field, or even print it and leave it in your camera bag for easy reference! Keep in mind that this is based on 1/3rd stop intervals. If you shoot at 1/2 stop or full stop intervals, the “clicks” will change. Half-stop intervals would be two clicks instead of three. Full-stop intervals would be one click. Most modern cameras are set to 1/3rd stop increments by default.

CHALLENGES

You might be thinking, “What if the light is changing quickly, and I don’t have time to do all this?” If your camera has “zebras” showing your overexposed areas in live view or on the screen, all you have to do is dial your settings in and get to work. You can also use the live preview on your camera to see what the scene will look like and how the light affects the shot. If you have neither of these options, use your histogram! This is the easiest, fastest, and most accurate way to dial this in. Push the histogram to the right slightly and then start your sequence from there. In a pinch you can always rely strictly on ETTR, just remember to avoid clipping unless you are bracketing and blending exposures in post.

Getting used to the process may take a few attempts but once you establish a flow that works for you it will come naturally. You will learn your camera and different lighting scenarios quickly, and eventually, you will be able to “guesstimate” where you should be bracketing from with decent accuracy. In a situation where I do not have time to take a test shot or set up the shot using live view, I underexpose 2/3rds to one full stop and fire the bracket. My camera responds well to these settings in golden hour scenes, even during the transition between blue hour and golden hour. You can do this by setting your exposure compensation or simply adjusting your shutter speed.

If you want to take an image at a specific setting, such as water flowing or waves crashing, we work using ISO and shutter speed. For instance, if you are attempting to capture a scene at 1 second and you want to bracket that, you would need to adjust the ISO of the camera in place of the shutter speed doing the same thing we did previously. You would set your camera at the desired settings, zero the light meter, and then adjust your ISO until you see “blinkies” or until the histogram is pushed to the right. From that point, reduce your shutter speed by six clicks or two stops and leave the ISO at the setting you began to clip at. Your overexposed image will be at the desired settings. The subsequent darker frames will preserve the highlights. The only variant to remember here is increasing the ISO until you clip, then reducing the shutter speed to offset the bracket as opposed to doing it all using shutter speed.

If you have questions or comments drop them below! Thanks for checking out the blog. See you guys in two weeks!