[seadog]

I use auto bracket on my tripod with IR remote at 3sec delay. I can see the camera shake as it does it's thing! And it is very noisy. I think the mirror is not staying up for the whole series and is going up and down each shot. I remember this question being asked before but can't find it (I will bookmark it this time!) What is the trick for keeping the mirror up for all the shots?

BTW, I use Enfuse for blending the shots and love it! I am not a big fan of "tone mapped" HDR- I like higher DR with more realism.

Thanks!

[Karl Stevens]

the mirror is not staying up for the whole series and is going up and down each shot

Yes, that's "normal" behavior.

What is the trick for keeping the mirror up for all the shots?

Using live view instead of the 3s delay should keep the mirror up for all shots.

I use Enfuse for blending the shots and love it! I am not a big fan of "tone mapped" HDR- I like higher DR with more realism.

I'm not a big fan of extreme tone-mapping either, but I find enfuse typically leaves the result looking a little flat. I usually tone-map, but turn the settings down to keep it looking more natural. (The new Fattal 06 TMO in Luminance-HDR 2.3 is wonderful at this
- usually turning down the saturation is all that's required to get a nice natural looking image.)

[panoguy]

You're right, the mirror is going up with each shot. Bracketing and MLU are part of the same "command string" and cannot be combined (as of this writing - although I've long requested it). You can use Live View to "hold" the mirror up during a bracketing sequence...

[seadog]

Ahhhh, so that's it! I will give it a try. Thanks a bunch!

Yes, the Enfuse blended images are very flat but usually processes nicely to do whatever I want. I just got CS6 and it has HDR capability so I will see what it can do to make natural looking images. Now, if I can figure a way to make exposure blended panos.....

[Karl Stevens]

I can figure a way to make exposure blended panos.

Hugin does a pretty good job of that. Give each stack a different stack number in the images tab, align the center images and select "exposure fused from stacks" as your output.

[panoguy]

Now, if I can figure a way to make exposure blended panos.....

Easy peasy! First thing you'll want to do it set your camera to only vary the shutter speed while bracketing, so read this post here. When shooting panos, you don't want the meter to change anything for you (which means you use "M" mode), and further you don't want the aperture to change your DOF during brackets (hence the setting outlined above). Finally, once you've got all your brackets, either Hugin, AutoPano Pro, or PTGui will be able to either Enfuse your brackets *while stitching them,* or produce an HDR pano (my method) which you can tonemap later.

NB: if you decide to Enfuse your images first, before stitching the pano, be sure they all are processed and fused with the same settings!