Exposure bracketing instead of brightening dark areas

Saturday 4 July 2026, 14:14 by Nando Harmsen | 1,736 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Modern cameras promise a huge dynamic range. Sometimes as much as 14 stops or more. That is of course wonderful. Yet sometimes it is better not to use it. Exposure bracketing is then the wiser choice.

I was handed a camera when I was standing on the Hverfjall volcano in Iceland. Would I take a photo of a group of American tourists? It turned out that the camera was set to bracketing by default.

The walking path along the rim of the Hverfjall crater, with the group of American tourists coincidentally in the distance.
The reason the American gave me was: 'so that the sky wasn't overexposed.' A good reason, if it weren't for the fact that the dynamic range of the scene did not make exposure bracketing necessary.

At that moment, the camera sensor's dynamic range was more than large enough to capture everything with the correct exposure. Anything that is still too dark can easily be brightened. And vice versa.

The landscape correctly exposed, but the sky overexposed. A familiar occurrence in landscape photography, among other types. Overexposure can never be rescued.
By making use of the camera's dynamic range, exposure bracketing is not necessary. If you make sure you expose for the light areas (EttR), everything that is dark can be rescued in post-processing.

There is a downside to this. If you push the limits of the camera's dynamic range (DR), you will always be confronted with poor image quality. That is unavoidable and it can be distracting.

EttR, in other words exposing for the lightest areas. The landscape is then too dark. But of course that can be brightened in post-processing. The result is shown further on in the article.
Of course, there are all kinds of noise reduction methods that work surprisingly well. However, they remain emergency solutions. Prevention is always better. You can achieve that with exposure bracketing, which is what that American used.

It is simple. Take a series of photos with different exposures. One photo for the light areas. One photo for the dark areas. And one, two or three photos in between. Use steps of 1 stop if possible.

Exposure bracketing with automatic exposure bracketing (AEB or BKT). You still have to merge them into an HDR.
The ideal option is to use a tripod. But it can also be done without one. Use auto exposure bracketing (AEB or BKT) and set your camera to continuous shooting. Stand steady and keep the shutter button pressed.

You can easily merge these photos in post-processing. Use Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity, Luminar or any other programme that supports merging into HDR. You will often get an automatic result.

The best approach is to edit an HDR photo like any other normal photo. Because that is what it is. Do not think it should look different because it has the name HDR attached to it.

This is the result of merging into HDR and carrying out normal post-processing in Lightroom Classic.
What is the advantage of HDR over making maximum use of the camera's dynamic range? Simple, the HDR has much less noise than the brightened photo. Details and colours are much better preserved.

The comparison between a brightened dark photo (left) and exposure bracketing (right). Look at the noise, colour and level of detail.
Of course, exposure bracketing is not always possible. With a group photo, like the one I took of the American group, it is difficult. People move between the different shots.

In that case, brightening the image and making use of the camera's dynamic range is the answer. Those clever noise reduction methods are then a fantastic emergency solution.

Do you have the opportunity to use exposure bracketing? Then it is always better than brightening the image afterwards in post-processing. You get much more detail, better colours and no excessive amount of noise. No AI noise reduction can compete with that.

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