I have been trying to work out how to use the AEB facility but can't seem to figure it out even after watching a number of videos. I think I have set the camera up for it and I am shooting in Av mode. I opted for three exposures with one stop either side of "correct" exposure. I am not sure whether this means that I should get three separate frames with one under exposed, one correct, and one over. That is what I expected but I only ever get one shot. If I set the camera to continuous shooting, it just goes on way beyond three shots. And if I shoot something with a strong backlight, it is always over exposed. I am guessing that there is some controlling setting that I have missed out on or something I am not understanding. Can anyone help me understand?
Yes you would get 3 separate images as you expected. In single shot mode you would press the button 3 times and it should show you on te meter which one it is taking. With continuous set, if you press the shutter once you should have it rapid fire all three. Are you sure you are not holding the shutter down on continuous and cycling through multiple auto-bracket rounds? Regarding back-lighting, you could easily be more that a stop darker on the subject than the background. You can try this exercise and walk up to the subject and get a reading for the meter off of them up close, dial that in and then back up and compose. Or you could expose the scene, and start dialing in exposure compensation to the scene 1 or 2 stops until the subject is exposed properly, thus over exposing the background. If you want the subject and background to be both exposed well you will have to at least introduce fill flash.
I never get the rapid fire three times, maybe because I don't have the right setting somewhere. I could be cycling through multiple rounds but how would I know? I guess what I am after is two things: A) What are all the settings that are needed to instruct the camera to do what I want; and B) How do I tell it has done what I want?
all you need to do is set the AEB to desired bracketing. So if you have 1 single bar it is off. If you have 3 bars on your screen then you have dialed in some sort of bracketing, be it a whole stop or partial. on single shot you will take where ever the middle bar is ( you should set the exposure to what you think is correct exposure) your following shutter presses will be the over and under exposure bracket you set. The meter will show a line on it showing which bracketed shot it is taking, both in viewfinder and on top LCD. On continuous you will hold and listen for all three to finish then release. If you keep holding yes you will rapid fire right into more bracketed shots. The only place to set this is the AEB setting, it is either on or off depending on if you set something.
