No bracketing in RAW...

[loomy]

I plan on experimenting with HDR pics, which require shooting in RAW.

My camera does not allow bracketing while in RAW mode. Is my only option to manually adjust the exposure?

Any tips are appreciated.

Thanks!

[kirbinster]

If it allows bracketing in jpeg mode you could try shooting that way, but raw is better. If it does not braket raw then as you indicated your option is to change things manually.

[Murtasma]

Previous poster is correct try jpg instead if not then manually is the only way what camera do you use btw?

[GEli]

Be sure to manually adjust the shutter speed to +x/-x stops, not your aperture. The aperture will adjust your DOF, and when combining photos in an HDR you want DOF matched in all shots.

[loomy]

Thanks for the tips.

Is there an ideal mode to shoot RAW? Manual, auto, etc...?

[FrankenPengie]

That depends on your expertise. RAW is the best image format to work with regarding post processing and what-not. How you take the picture is up to you. If you've not mastered Manual I encourage experimenting with it. For must-have pictures use modes you're more comfortable with.

Edit: For HDR I recommend Manual. Take one properly set pic, then take the up stop, and down stop shots.

[inkista]

Bracketing manually is no big deal. As Geli said, you'll want to bracket by shutter speed, not aperture. You will also want to do all the typical photostitching things: use a tripod & timer or remote, lock your focus by going to manual, and lock your white balance by using a manual setting rather than AWB.

The nice part about manually bracketing is that you're no longer restricted by auto-bracketing limits. You can shoot nine images at 1EV intervals, or three images at 3EV intervals or whatever. You're not stuck with pre-determined limits on the number of images or exposure intervals.

If you want to get naturalistic-looking HDR images and you're going open source, you may also want to look into enfuse. It's getting a lot of cubic pano folks excited because it gives exceedingly good results automatically.

[loomy]

Excellent, all these tips are great.

Now... I have taken my seperate exposures to combine in post-production, and dumped them into my iPhoto. There is a jpeg and a "raw" of each pic.

When i look at the RAW images in iphoto, they are about 19 megs or so each, when I drag them to a folder, it seems as though they are automatically switching to jpegs at 2 megs a peice. any idea what is happening? It seems as though the same thing is happening when i just drag them into Photomatix.

I would like to edit them at their highest quality.

Any ideas?

[bbeck4x4]

Originally Posted by loomy

Excellent, all these tips are great.

Now... I have taken my seperate exposures to combine in post-production, and dumped them into my iPhoto. There is a jpeg and a "raw" of each pic.

When i look at the RAW images in iphoto, they are about 19 megs or so each, when I drag them to a folder, it seems as though they are automatically switching to jpegs at 2 megs a peice. any idea what is happening? It seems as though the same thing is happening when i just drag them into Photomatix.

I would like to edit them at their highest quality.

Any ideas?

[/I]

I believe that is a "function" of iphoto, I went to lightroom because of this.