Shooting HDR with Nikon D3000 – Tutorial

Like many other designers and developers, I also have an itch for photography.  After scouring the internet for a tutorial on how to – specifically – shoot HDR photos with my new Nikon D3000, I was a bit disappointed.  I found some interesting posts and discussions, but no real step by step guide specific to the D3000.  So, after it’s all said and done, I decided to post one myself.

So, there are a lot of tutorials out there discussing the “how-to” of HDR.  They talk about Photomatrix, Photoshop, tonal mapping, etc, etc etc.  But here’s the thing – I want to know how to capture those three images on my D3000 with the different exposures.  The rest I can do – I can compile, and edit, and tone map – but how do I get those shots in the first place?  Well, there are two methods that I have found that work for me.

First of all, the D3000 does not have auto-bracketing.  So, you will need to do this manually.  Here are my two methods.

Method 1

1. Set your Nikon D3000 on your tripod, obviously pointing at the direction of the subject.  make sure you put the camera exactly where you intend to shoot before you actually take the photos. (Please note at this point my camera is set to capture fine Jpegs)

2. Set the dial on your D3000 to the “A” setting.  This is Aperture Priority.  It will allow you to set the aperture, and let the camera take care of everything else.  For more on aperture, click here.  After you set the aperture using the thumb dial, take a few test photos to make sure you got the setting right, and the lighting looks good.

3. Next, locate the exposure compensation button.  It is towards the front of the camera, and has a “+/-” on it.  Alright!  Now you are ready to shoot.

4. Make sure the exposure compensation is registered at 0.0, and snap your first shot.  Then, hold down the exposure compensation button, and increase the comp using the thumb dial.  Increase it to 2.0, and snap your second shot.  Then hold down that exposure compensation button and use the thumb dial to set the exposure to -2.0 and snap your third shot.  If you are only using 3 photos to combine to HDR, you’re good to go!  Otherwise, you can continue snapping away using different exposures for later creation of HDR.  Me myself, I like to start off with three.

5. Take your three images, and use either Photoshop of Photomatrix to combine your images into an HDR masterpiece.  There are many tutorials out there on his process.

Method 2

1. With this method, set your Nikon D3000 on the tripod.  This time, set your D3000 to capture in RAW format.  This will allow you to later use the in-camera editing feature.

2. Point and shoot at your intended subject.  With this method, you can shoot in any mode you want – manual, auto… it makes no difference.  Just point and shoot away!  You will still need to capture three images though.  So, shoot three pics!

3. Once three pictures have been taken, hit the “play” button on the back of the camera.  Leave the first picture you took alone.  Advance to the second picture, and hit the “ok” button.  This will bring up a menu, and you need to select the NEF raw editing feature.

4.  From there, change the exposure on the second photo to 2.0.   Save it by choosing the ‘EXE” option.  Change the exposure on the third picture to -2.0.  Save it.   Now when you transfer these to your computer, you will have three images – one with 0.0 exposure, one with 2.0, and one with -2.0.

5. Again, you can use those three photos in the application of your choice to be combines into an HDR image.   I have played with both Photomatrix and Photoshop, and both are pretty useful. You can check other blogs out there for ongoing flame wars on the subject.

Check out some beautiful HDR pictures here.