Why and when to take multiple exposures

High dynamic range
Of course the first and the biggest reason to do multiple exposures is to catch the whole dynamic range of a scene. Even the best camera can’t capture everything in one photo. You will need to blend images if you want to avoid overexposed or underexposed areas.
Better safe than sorry
Even if you think that the dynamic range is not too big and you will get everything from one photos, you can be mistaken. It’s better to have the extra exposures and don’t need them, that not having them and needing them.
Automatic backup
Anything can happen when you are taking photos. Even a tiny movement of the camera can destroy the image. When you ave multiple exposures, you easily can get around this just by using other exposures. If you took 3 and one is bad, you still have two that you can work with and so on.
Removing people from photos
Since you easily can under or over-expose a photo by one to two stops, you can use the extra exposures to remove moving objects or people from the final photos (more on this here). The same goes for other moving things. For instance, if there was wind and the leaves are blurred in the shot. You can take a faster exposure, like -2EV one, overexpose it to match the exposure you want, and then just blend it in. Since for that one the exposure time was shorter, the leaves will be more stable in it.

Why and when not to take multiple exposures

Files take more space
The most obvious reason, you will get more photos. The file don’t take that much space at first, but over time it stacks up. I know this best from personal experience :)
Takes more time
It takes more time to take multiple exposures. Especially in the evening, when you photos get into the 10-30s range, you will get to the point when taking just one photo takes up to few minutes. If you light is changing fast, and you have only few minutes to take you photos, this can be a problem.
You are taking photos handheld
Some do multiple exposures when taking photos handheld. I don’t bother anymore. Even in the brightest of sunlight you are just not able to hold the camera steady enough. You will not be able to blend the shots perfectly. Rather than this, underexpose the photo a bit. You will always be able to better correct underexposed areas than overexposed ares afterwards.
Taking photos of moving subjects
Again, if you are taking photos of moving subjects, just take one shots. You will not be able to blend the shots anyway. A good example here is fireworks. They change so quickly, you can get only one photo. But remember, if you did not move you camera, you can still take a multiple exposures of the scene afterwards, and just blend the moving subject into them later.

All Saint’s Day 2018

I have been posting a photo from the All Saint’s Day every 1st November for years now. And this time it will not be different. Again I stopped by the nearby Martin’s cemetery today, and took few shots of the remembrance candles all the visitors are placing on the graves there.

As usually, the play of all the lights looked spectacular and made for one very beautiful atmosphere. This photo was taken at one of the statues in the Martin’s Cemetery. Visitors placed all the candles so they created this heart shape, and I tried to catch it in this photo. Was not completely easy, as I was surrounded by people, but with the 12mm Laowa lens I could stand really close and still get the whole shape.

This is a 5 exposure HDR blended with the original exposures. HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine, blended in Photoshop.

Astana city center panorama

Let’s continue with another panorama today. This one was taken from the top of one of the skyscrapers in the city. It was right after a thunderstorm, so that’s why it’s quite cloudy there.

This is a three shot panorama, combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop. As you maybe noticed, sometime I use Lightroom and sometime PTGui for my panorama. The reason why I use both is simple. While Lightroom now supports HDR panoramas, it can’t create separate blending planes. It only creates one, already combined HDR photo. Since I like to blend in parts of the original shots, I need the blend planes. And this is what I can get from PTGui. So I use Lightroom only for panoramas, where I don’t use multiple exposures.

And here are few details:

In the snow

No, this photo is not actual :) I was looking through my Lightroom library, and randomly stopped on this one, so I thought I edit it and share it with you. I took this shot in early 2015, during a very rare winter day. It just snowed like crazy.

Unluckily, after about a hour in this snow, my camera broke (5D mark II at that time) and I could not take much more photos. But luckily, it started working again the next day, and worked since. Strange how things sometime repair themselves.

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

How to create simple action to add watermark

As I mentioned, this will be a text based watermark, how I use. I will do a separate guide for a graphic on later, but it’s quite similar.

1. open any image, does not matter which one
2. choose Windows/Actions (or Alt+F9) to turn on the Actions window
3. either select a group to put your new action in, or create a new group by clicking the folder icon, name it and select it

4. create the new action, by clicking the new action button, name it and click record
5. choose the Text tool, select your font, font style and size, click on the image and write the text of your watermark
6. once done, select the move tool to deselect the text

7. select the whole image with Select/All (or Ctrl+A)
8. now align the text with the image, I will do with the bottom right corner
9. choose Layer/Align Layer to Selection/Bottom Edges to align with the bottom edge
10. choose Layer/Align Layer to Selection/Right Edges to align with the right edge
11. deselect the selection with Select/Deselect (or Ctrl+D)

12. now we move the text a bit away from the edge. Just hit the UP arrow key twice and the LEFT arrow key twice to nudge the text a bit (the move tool should be still selected)
13. click on stop to finish the action recording
14. you should have the following action recorded: make text layer, set selection, align current layer, align current layer, set selection and move current layer

Now on any image you can run this action you just created, to add the text you chosen to the bottom right of the image. If you want a different position, just choose different alignments in 9 and 10th step.

Also, don’t forget to save the action set you created. Select it, click on the 4 lines icon in the top right of the window and choose Save Actions…