topic Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 22:03:34 GMT

Hey! I have an EOS Rebel T6 and I'm trying to use exposure bracketing. I've looked through multiple manuals, have watched many instructional videos and asked people who have had more experience with cameras how to and everything I have tried, failed. I always end up with one very underexposed or overexposed, blurry picture and I followed every direction I was given. I would like to know if there's something I'm missing or if my camera could potentially have something wrong with it.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

stevet1 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:30:10 GMT

K-Emery,

With bracketing, you have to take three successive shots, one at a time, by pressing your shutter button three times. The camera takes one normal exposure, one slightly underexposed, and one slightly overexposed.

If you turn on your burst mode first, your camera will take three quick shots with one press of the shutter button.

Steve Thomas

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

ebiggs1 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 14:19:00 GMT

" I always end up with one very underexposed or overexposed, blurry picture ..."

The two conditions are not related. The under, correct and over exposure is correct. That's how it is supposed to work. You then merge the three photos into one HDR image. BTW, three shots is not the only number of photos you can make using this method. I have used five and seven at times.

The blurry shots are a different matter. You need to find out what it could be OOF, too slow shutter, missed focus, etc, whatever.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

Waddizzle — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:33:44 GMT

Place the camera on a tripod to keep the images well aligned. I’m not sure what you mean by “burst” mode. Continuous Drive Mode, instead of Single Shot?

If you use the shutter delay time, the camera will capture the entire bracketing sequence, even if the drive mode is set to Single Shot. The camera will fire at its max fps..

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 16:59:47 GMT

Ohh, I meant as in terms of white balance by overexposed. I guess I should've said the image turned out way too bright instead, my mistake. I only seem to end up with one picture that is too bright or too dark. Thank you for your feedback, I will be trying this!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:04:37 GMT

That might've been one part where I messed up, I didn't use a tripod or shutter delay time. Thank you for the advice! I'm gonna try this and see how it works!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

Waddizzle — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:09:50 GMT

@K-Emery wrote:
Ohh, I meant as in terms of white balance by overexposed. I guess I should've said the image turned out way too bright instead, my mistake. I only seem to end up with one picture that is too bright or too dark. Thank you for your feedback, I will be trying this!

In one sense, winding up one shot that is a little too bright and another that is a little too dark is the whole idea behind exposure bracketing.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:11:03 GMT

I saw that on a video once, then tried it and it still wasn't working out for me. I tried both setting my camera on continuous shooting and single shot. Thank you for the help!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

Waddizzle — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:23:12 GMT

If you need to capture multiple sequences, then put the lens cap on the lens and take a single “blank” image between sequences!

[EDIT] A baseball cap or towel works, too.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

zakslm — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 23:29:03 GMT

I'm not sure if this applies to the T6 or even if it answers the question you have on exposure bracketing, but here's what I discovered on my T7:

1) Turn on the camera, make sure the back display in on.

2) Hit the "Q" button (below the Av =/- button to the right of the back screen

3) Use the back pad (round thingy with the up, down, right, left buttons and the set button in the middle) to highlight the exposure compensation scale (goes from -3 to +3) in yellow

4) Press the center "Set" button

5) A scale from "Darker to "Lighter will appear with 0 in the middle and -3 and +3 on the left and right

6) Use the control wheel (under your right index finger in back of the shutter button) to expand the "bracket" back and forth between 1/3 stop and 2 stops of bracketing.

7) Press the "Set" button again. The back of the camera will show the "bracket" you set and the next 3 shots you take will be exposed at 0, the left bracket (minus), then the right bracket (plus).

I always use the menu to "Clear all Camera Settings" after anything like bracketing or if I set the camera differently than any default settings just so I start with "clear" settings before shooting again.

Another way to use exposure bracketing somewhat diffrently is if your starting point is something other than 0 exposure comensation. If you set Exposure compensation at say -1 1/3rd stops you can still set up bracketing as described above. So in that case, the first shot would be at -1 1/3rd stops, the second at whatever you set the minus bracket to and the third to the plus bracket. So if your bracket is 1 1/3rd stops, the first shot would be at -1 1/3rd, the second at -2 2/3rds and the third at 0. I did this last night when trying to photograph the sunset, starting at -1 exposure compensation and using a 2/3rds bracket. Below is the minus bracket shot at -1 2/3rds that in my opinion, was the best of the 3 (after cropping and slightly punching up the colors)

Hope that helps.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

ebiggs1 — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:02:33 GMT

" I only seem to end up with one picture that is too bright or too dark."

Here is a typical three exposure bracket and since we are talking sunsets.

... which yields this final image.

zakslm,

A critical suggestion. Backoff the sliders in your editor a bit. Remember in photography editing, less is more. Let the HDR do its thing.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 01:38:13 GMT

Okay! I tried a few different methods that all pf you had suggested and finally got it to bracket! I put the camera on a tripod, went to the menu and went in the AEB settings, kept the middle at 0 and the other two lines about 3 ticks away from the middle, put the shutter timer on 2 sec, changed my ISO to fit the picture I was taking and pressed the shutter 3 times and it finally gave me 3 bracketed photos! Thank you for your advice!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 01:39:39 GMT

I haven't thought of taking blank images in between, I'll try that and see what it can do. Thank you!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

K-Emery — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 01:45:53 GMT

Thank you for your advice! I'll try it to see what it will do for my camera! That's a really nice picture!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

zakslm — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 04:44:29 GMT

ebiggs1,

I understand about backing off the sliders, but not the HDR part.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no HDR. The shot you see is the - 1 2/3 exposure - in my opinion the most dramatic of the 3 bracketed shots (slightly punching up the saturation and colors) but not getting too crazy. Sunsets in Arizona this time of year can be pretty spectacular.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

FloridaDrafter — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 05:26:11 GMT

@zakslm wrote:
I understand about backing off the sliders, but not the HDR part.
To the best of my knowledge, there was no HDR. The shot you see is the - 1 2/3 exposure - in my opinion the most dramatic of the 3 bracketed shots (slightly punching up the saturation and colors) but not getting too crazy. Sunsets in Arizona this time of year can be pretty spectacular.

You have to use a program to combine the three exposures that you captured. I recommend downloading, or if you have it, using Canons Digital Photo Professional 4 (DPP 4). You will load the three exposures in DPP 4, select them, then click the Tools pulldown and select "Start HDR compositing tool" or press CNTL Y at the same time on your keyboard. You will then get a panel with your images thumbnails and get some options on how you want to proceed. After you have made your selections you can combine your three images into an HDR image.

Newton

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

FloridaDrafter — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 05:31:19 GMT

@K-Emery wrote:
"and pressed the shutter 3 times and it finally gave me 3 bracketed photos!"

Although you can press three times, you shouldn't have to.

Here is page 119 from your T6 users manual. You may also want to visit page 118.

Newton

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

ebiggs1 — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 15:40:07 GMT

Perhaps a definition of "bracketing" is necessary so we all know what we are talking about.

Bracketing is when you take usually an odd number of photos one under exposed by a stop, one correct exposure and one over exposed by a stop. Now for sure there are many other variables you can use in bracketing but this is a common way. After you merge all three into one final image. Supposedly it gives the best of everything exposure wise. But you still must use careful adjustment using the various sliders in the editor or you get a comic book picture look.

Here is an example where HDR made a photo possible. The DR in this photo far exceeded the cameras ability but with three exposures it is easy.

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

zakslm — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 17:00:58 GMT

FloridaDrafter,

Good to know! I have DPP 4 on one of my computers but have only used it a few times when I was experimenting with shooting RAW an editing/doing post with DPP 4.

I did not know DPP4 does HDR compositing. Looks like there is a good reason to make sure the program is up to date and may start using it again. As time allows, I'll try auto-bracketing in continuous and HDR compositing in DPP 4.

The bracketing I've "experimented" with was done in single shot and not continuous, because quite frankly, I didn't think to do so. Most of my shooting is Single Shot, except for occasionally using a Creative Mode that has continuous shooting as part of the setup (i.e. Sports Mode).

Except when experimenting with shooting in Raw mode, I shoot in the default JPEG mode which is JPEG 24M 6000 X 4000 (on my T7) and copy the photos from the SD Card to my PC where I edit them in the Photo Editor that is part of Windows 10. Microsoft recently updated Photo Editor and to be honest, I preferred the previous version over the current version but perhaps I have to use it more and become accustomed to it but may switch to some other photo editor for JPEGs.

Thanks for the advice!

Re: EOS T6 Trouble with bracketing

ebiggs1 — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 15:08:57 GMT

If you are getting into photo editing you are putting severe limitations on how much you can edit if you don't shoot raw. The camera deletes any data it sees as not important in jpg. Plus edits can be destructive in jpg, they are not in raw.