Same Exposure Bracketing - Possible?

[USLatin]

Is there away, or is there a camera/company out there that already does this?

How sweet would it be if it isn't already available?

I am talking about a camera that can measure how much light each photosensor is getting without having to stop it from gathering light. That way it can record how much light hit it at say 1/200th but continue gathering light, then record how much had been gathered at say 1/150th then once more at 1/100th... or whatever you set the exposure times for...

That way you can get as close as possible for capturing the same instant.

HECK... what if it could record every 1/1000th for a second or two into a big buffer memory, then you could go back and pull out any shutter length from a timeline! You'd be able to get them to match even closer!

Is there anything like this out there already?

[alwayslearning]

I'm not quite for sure what you're asking, but on my camera I can select an option for it to take 3, 5 or 7 shots within about a second and each one is at a different exposure setting. It works great for picking the best one to work with or for HDR imaging, etc.

Is that something like what you mean?

And then asking about this:

HECK... what if it could record every 1/1000th for a second or two into a big buffer memory ...

Are you saying a shot every 1/1000th a second? That'd be like 1000 frames per second? Not sure what you're asking.

Larry

[morgan_moore]

Is there away, or is there a camera/company out there that already does this?

How sweet would it be if it isn't already available?

I am talking about a camera that can measure how much light each photosensor is getting without having to stop it from gathering light. That way it can record how much light hit it at say 1/200th but continue gathering light, then record how much had been gathered at say 1/150th then once more at 1/100th... or whatever you set the exposure times for...

That way you can get as close as possible for capturing the same instant.

HECK... what if it could record every 1/1000th for a second or two into a big buffer memory, then you could go back and pull out any shutter length from a timeline! You'd be able to get them to match even closer!

Is there anything like this out there already?

If you shoot RAW you get an exposure slider in the software

allowing you to output the same image at different brightness levels

raw software also allows you to vary the colour temperature

and many other parameters

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you can use auto bracket which takes a burst of shots at different exposures too

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what are you actually trying to do ?

If you are looking for a still to match your moving footage in look and brightness manipulation of that image (which must be shot RAW) in a raw software is the best method

of course your exposure needs to be in the right ballpark

Phase One Capture One is my favorite Raw software

Cameras that shoot RAW and have auto bracket burst would be the usual professional models Nikon D3, Canon DS etc

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By the way HDR is (simply) the practice getting two exposures of different brightness, sandwich ing them together and, either using software or manually to gain a High Dynamic Range (HDR) by using information from both frames

Example two frames shot on a tripod one exposed for sky and one exposed for everything else stuck together

It is my experience that one can extract a huge dynamic range from one image shot RAW so sandwich ing from two distinct frames is rarely required although sandwiching manually from different 'developments' of the same RAW frame is a standard but painful part of many stills pros daily workflow


SMM

[alwayslearning]

Morgan, have you used the Photoshop CS3 RAW program? I have never heard of the Phase One software until you just mentioned it. I looked it up here:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/549144-REG/Phase_One_88000307_Capture_One_4_RAW.html#includes

I'm wondering if you could say what it does that the Photoshop one doesn't do?

Thanks,
Larry

[morgan_moore]

Im on CS2 or CS I think - life too short to upgrade. PhaseOne (.com ?) is a legit company that make fancy cameras - get the software direct

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Im not a fan of photoshop for raw conversions

particularly as I tend to be working on many images at once

you make a setting in C1 on one image and then paste it onto the rest of the edit

you can make contact sheets fast for client selection

and it is very stable

but lastest PS probably has all of this dug in there some where

Pros I know (and I am a pro too) just dont really use PS for raw processing probably because Adobes first effort three years ago was cr@p so we just went else where

Adobe has another raw conversion software - LightRoom - so even Adobe dont use PS for Raw conversion

I dont like like lightroom because it 'eats your files' (wants to create its own directory structure) so is always flashing warinings 'file missing' (yeah I know - I stuck it on a hard drive)

There is another cheap RAW Development program called unsuprisingly Raw Developer

Get the trials of C1 and RD and play

BTW after raw development of my images they then move onto a next postproduction stage - retouching and the addition of tone and feel (grading?) - for that Photoshop is absolutely the corecct and best tool

so a pro workflow goes typically like this..

Shoot RAW

Load to Computer

Browse with Raw Program (you are browsing the whole shoot as a contact sheet)

Delete pics of feet and sky

Apply a basic correction for exposure/colour temperature

Optionally create a digital contact sheet for client selection

Choose selection

Output as TIFF 16bit

Retouch TIFFs in Photoshop

Make JPGs for easy client delivery

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The BEST raw development ALGORITHM is debated endlessly on still forums like luminous landscape (where you can buy a 5hour DVD on how to use lightroom) - I wont comment on which is best because I dont really care - C1 works for me


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Oh also C1 has a thing called variants where you can make two (or more) different corrections to the same image as required at the begining of the thread

ready for outputting and layering togther again in PS for the ultimate HDR file

SMM

[Cools]

Adobe has another raw conversion software - LightRoom - so even Adobe dont use PS for Raw conversion

The raw conversion engine in Lightroom and Photoshop is the same, called Camera Raw. Lightroom is an image management application, with a large set of image enhancement options, but if you want to tweak your images further you take them into Photoshop. That's how the two applications are designed to work.

You can also perform batch conversion and copy over previous raw settings through Bridge and in Camera Raw.


Pros I know (and I am a pro too) just dont really use PS for raw processing probably because Adobes first effort three years ago was cr@p so we just went else where

Adobe's Camera Raw renders images different from what you'd see on your camera LCD. This isn't a fault of Adobe's because all the major camera manufacturers keep their processing a secret so Adobe can only guess at what the image is supposed to look like based on the raw data from the sensor.

If you open the same raw image in multiple applications you will see a different result in each one. Each one guesses differently (with exception of the manufacturer's own application, like Nikon Capture NX for Nikon cameras). Some people prefer the rendering you get in Phase One, or Bibble Pro, or Aperture, etc.

With the latest release, Adobe has added camera profiles in Camera Raw (also available in Lightroom) that try to approximate the image you see on your camera's LCD without you having to do a lot of tweaking. I was surprised at how close it got and I'm finding that I'm using Camera Raw more often now to do my processing in.


I dont like like lightroom because it 'eats your files' (wants to create its own directory structure) so is always flashing warinings 'file missing' (yeah I know - I stuck it on a hard drive)

You can set it up so it references files in your own folders. Same with Aperture.


Oh also C1 has a thing called variants where you can make two (or more) different corrections to the same image as required at the begining of the thread

Both Lightroom and Aperture have that as well.

[morgan_moore]

all of the above is doubtless correct - as I said - its in there somewhere - I, however, just like C1 having tried them all - I have spent significant time fiddling with ACR (adobe camera raw on CS2 - not the latest) and just cant get the colours right - I have been through some strange (but excellent) cameras though - Kodak SLRN then Sinar 54LV- not the cameras adobe are spending much time with - I coulndt even get the colours right on a nikon D200 - this was a fire pic - all over the shop with ACR - I have been processing raw since owning an eyelike precision which bizarrely had the best, but hardest to use raw software ever - RGB curves only and presets that were sooo wrong- that camera applies nothing to the file at all just records some 1 and 0s

raw processing is so personal that people just home in on a solution for them probably based on thier early experiences

S

[USLatin]

I am not sure if anyone understood what I was asking. But what I mean is to get data on the flow rate of Photons into each sensor and at very high frequencies, so as to be able to recreate from that string of info as many exposures as you would like from as short of an exposure time as possible for motion blur purposes... you could select to pull any given exposure length from, three exposure lengths selected would create three different exposures and they could overlap each other like a cake in a common time line.