Taking pictures for HDR

To work with HDR one needs pictures that are almost identical. Each pixel needs to match, even though their values may be different.

To achieve this one needs a) a tripod, b) a good camera.

I have not figured out if this is possible with my D40X, so the following just describes how to do it with my D300.

The task is to take a series of pictures of exactly the same motive but with varying exposure - bracketing. The D300 has different kinds of bracketing, but here we talk just about exposure bracketing.

• Make sure the Custom Setting e5 in the camera is set to "AE only".

• Press the lower button next to the lens and turn the small command dial (away from you on the camera) to select the bracketing exposure increment. Possible values are 0.3, 0.7 and 1. Check the LCD display to see the values.

• Press the lower button next to the lens and turn the main command dial (closest to you) to select the number of shots in the bracketing sequence.

Values to the left of "Off", toggle between positive and negative. For example "-3" means that 3 frames will be taken that are increasingly underexposed. "+2" means that 2 frames will be taken that are increasingly overexposed.

Values to the right of "Off" increase the number of frames on both sides of the current setting. Check the LCD screen to visualise the settings.
The lower button next to the lens is called "Fn button" in the manual.

To launch the shooting of images

1. Attach the camera to a tripod.
2. Go to the Shooting menu > Interval timer shooting > right arrow (to enter the Interval shooting panel).
3. Highlight Now and press left arrow. (Not right arrow, unless you have modifications to make.)
4. Press up arrow to highlight "On".
5. Press "OK".

The images will be taken with a start after about 3 seconds.

The number of images entered in the Interval timer shooting panel does not matter. What matters is what you selected with the Fn button and the command dials. Neither does it matter what start time you enter, unless you really use the start time option. "Now" means "in three seconds".

Self-Timer mode and the time set for it in Custom setting C3 is not used. It even prevents the Interval timer shooting from working.

Do not bother with the camera setting "Multiple exposure". That is just a setting to make one picture of several shots inside the camera - something we do not intend to do now.

(The explanation above may not be simple, but the usability in this particular area is confusing and incomprehensible without several trials and errors. Try and err. You may soon understand it.)