Bracketing

Bracketing refers to the technique in photography of taking several shots of the same subject. In general, shots will be taken in varying degrees of exposure, for example, in order to attain the desired result.

This is usually done when the environment or conditions surrounding the subject make it difficult to get the exact shot that you require. Several shorts are taken and the most desireable one is chosen.

When bracketing is done with varing degrees of exposure, it is referred to as Exposure Bracketing. Likewise, varing degrees of focus and depth-of-field settings are referred to as Focus Bracketing, and varying brightness settings in flash is called Flash Bracketing.

How Can I put this into practice?

If you want to practice making use of bracketing, take your digital camera and consult your manual to see how to change the exposure settings.

1. Find a subject to shoot and take a picture like you normally would.
2. Now, adjust the exposure setting on your camera to under-expose the shot a bit by setting it to -1/3EV. Take another shot.
3. Set your exposure setting to +1/3EV to over-expose the shot and take a third picture.

You now have 3 photos to choose from, and it might be surprising to see that the normal setting might not be the best one. If you have plenty of memory on your camera, you might want to use this technique more often.

When Should This Be Used?

In perfect conditions, there may be little need for bracketing. However, many times shadows in the scene or other imperfect conditions may exist. It is a bad practice to simply think that all shots can be "fixed in Photoshop" or your other favorite editing software. Even better, many digital cameras have an Exposure Bracketing setting that can take an under-exposed and an over exposed picture automatically.