HDR bracketing

[K-amps]

I got a question for all those HDR lovers out there.  With Canon, one can only do auto bracketing (whether shooting in Aperture Priority or Manual) for three exposures.  For a lot of scenes that I come across, this seems to not capture the entire dynamic range of the scene.  My question is: How do you compensate?  Do  you manually expose 9 brackets and hope you don't bump your tripod or nothing dramatic changes in the scene?  Or, do you deal with only 3 exposures and if so, what is your typical range of compensation (ie +/- 1,2 stops etc)?

I had a 350d and had the same dilemma; plus maybe I am lazy... so I went to eekbay and got myself a 1d Mk.II for less than $900. Set the custom function to do 7AEB's. It works!

[autochrome]

It's a little annoying that Canon blocks out features like that via software. They've already done the work coding the firmware, it doesn't take much to just add it to other bodies.

Rack focus, audio levels...
It's annoying this artificial market segmentation via software, i don't know what else it can be. Surely not incompetence, lazyness or lack of funds, it would be trivial for Canon software engineers to add these features as Magic Lantern does, specially for Canon engineers since they don't have to reverse engineer a thing.

[WildBill]

It's a little annoying that Canon blocks out features like that via software. They've already done the work coding the firmware, it doesn't take much to just add it to other bodies.

Isn't this sort of like saying, Photoshop Elements should have all the feature of Photoshop and Lightroom since Adobe has already done all the coding.  Canon like all companies is trying to find the right mix between making money and keeping customers happy.  Unless you are a monopoly or a politician you must do both to stay alive.

[EELinneman]

I ended up buying a Promote remote control. It will allow you to take up to 9 I believe, plus supports timelapse and timelapse HDR too.  Highly recommended.

[dstppy]

It's a little annoying that Canon blocks out features like that via software. They've already done the work coding the firmware, it doesn't take much to just add it to other bodies.

Isn't this sort of like saying, Photoshop Elements should have all the feature of Photoshop and Lightroom since Adobe has already done all the coding.  Canon like all companies is trying to find the right mix between making money and keeping customers happy.  Unless you are a monopoly or a politician you must do both to stay alive.

You're not from the United States, are you? 

[willhuff.net]

Isn't this sort of like saying, Photoshop Elements should have all the feature of Photoshop and Lightroom since Adobe has already done all the coding.  Canon like all companies is trying to find the right mix between making money and keeping customers happy.  Unless you are a monopoly or a politician you must do both to stay alive.

The problem with that analogy is that Photoshop is strictly a piece of software. Its features require significantly more coding and development than allowing more shots to be bracketed. A camera is mainly a piece of hardware. Most of the cost goes towards the physical parts, body, sensor, shutter, etc.
It would be like buying a CD player that has 4 volume settings or having to pay more for one that has 10.

[K-amps]

Isn't this sort of like saying, Photoshop Elements should have all the feature of Photoshop and Lightroom since Adobe has already done all the coding.  Canon like all companies is trying to find the right mix between making money and keeping customers happy.  Unless you are a monopoly or a politician you must do both to stay alive.

The problem with that analogy is that Photoshop is strictly a piece of software. Its features require significantly more coding and development than allowing more shots to be bracketed. A camera is mainly a piece of hardware. Most of the cost goes towards the physical parts, body, sensor, shutter, etc.
It would be like buying a CD player that has 4 volume settings or having to pay more for one that has 10.

Nice Analogy...

The kicker is that the value gained by the consumer is far more the cost of a few extra lines of code... So Basically, Canon is ok with Magic Lantern providing for free; what they wont do on their own? I would never let anyone feed crumbs to my kids... I'd want to take care of them myself as any self respecting person...

[TexPhoto]

As others have said, obviously Canon is trying to give you a reason to buy the pro body.  Sucks, but that's what they have  gone with.

The way I shoot this, is to have saved as a one of my custom settings: bracket -2, 0, +2. A priority, F11, 2 second delay, mirror lock.  I shoot this, then if I really want more exposures, twist in a +1, and shoot three more, resulting in -1,+1,+3.  Those 6 exposure will make for a pretty nice HDR.

2 second delay, mirror lock because I want the shot as steady as possible, and obviously I'm on a tripod.

[thejoyofsobe]

If I need more exposures then I take the 3 bracketed RAW files and adjust the exposure to process them to get as many levels of exposures as I need.

But really I'm usually too lazy to bring a tripod and don't usually need more than +/- 2 stops so I just do a lot of mine by reprocessing a single RAW file with half stop exposure increments. Sure the results aren't as good as if I broke out a tripod and bracketed but as most of my HDR work tends to be in black and white it tends not to matter as much.

[Kirill]

I ended up buying a Promote remote control. It will allow you to take up to 9 I believe, plus supports timelapse and timelapse HDR too.  Highly recommended.

Wow - Promote is 300$ - i rather get Xoom tablet for 400$ and use it to trigger 9 exposures. I am not sure if software for it already exists or this is the only thing in the works - http://www.talkandroid.com/51588-live-view-canon-shooting-via-usb-from-dslr-controller-app/?utm_source=feedburner-ta&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AndroidNewsGoogleAndroidForums+%28Android+News%2C+Rumours%2C+and+Updates%29