User's Manual

24 Promote Control 3.15 User Manual Rev 23

NOTE: You may want to reverse the High Dynamic Range bracketing order, so that the longest

exposures are taken first. See "HDR Exposure Order" Setup setting for more information.

11. Preview the resulting bracketing sequence displayed by the Promote Control in the bottom of the

screen. If the entered parameters result in a bracketing sequence that is out of available exposure

range, Promote Control will display an "[Invalid Settings]" message.

12. Press "Start" button on the Promote Control to take a series of images.

Setting the camera to manual focus is important because otherwise the camera attempts to refocus

before taking each picture. Obtaining focus may take time depending on the subject, lighting conditions,

type of the lens currently used, as well as a number of other considerations. Additional and unexpected

automatic camera focusing activity interferes with the exposure sequence and may prevent some images

from being taken.

When the current image sequence is finished, review the resulting images on your camera screen. To

get the best looking High Dynamic Range images, make sure the darkest image of the sequence has a

good definition of highlights, and the brightest image of the sequence contains all the shadows. You may

want to use the image histogram display of your camera to get a better idea on the tonal range of every

image.

If the darkest image does not have well defined highlights, but the brightest image has more than

enough shadows, decrease the starting exposure by one or two steps, and press the "Start" button to

take another sequence. Similarly, if the darkest image has enough well defined highlights, but the

brightest image has some lost shadows, increase the starting exposure setting and press the "Start"

button to take another sequence. In some cases you may find that neither the darkest nor the brightest

image have well defined highlights or shadows. In this case try increasing the "Total Exposures" setting

until you get a well defined tonal range across the resulting image sequence. Overall, a combination of

1.0EV step with 7 total exposures works well for most situations.

If a High Dynamic Range sequence requires an exposure longer than 30 seconds, the optional shutter

cable will be required to complete the exposure sequence. If no shutter cable is available, try increasing

your camera ISO

speed and/or use a larger aperture, and set a proportionally faster shutter speed until it is shorter than

30 seconds. See Connections section for more information about the shutter cable.

With shutter cable and exposures longer than 30 seconds your Promote Control will use Bulb exposure to

complete the sequence. Subject to camera support, Promote Control will attempt to enable Bulb mode

automatically. With other cameras, including Canon 5D Mark III, 6D and 60D, the Promote Control will

prompt you to manually engage the Bulb mode on your camera before continuing with the image

sequence. Note that with these camera models, Manual and Bulb exposure modes may each have a

different aperture setting. When switching to Bulb manually and back, make sure your aperture remained

the same, and adjust it if required.

High Dynamic Range mode can be optionally used to create High Dynamic Range Time-Lapse sequences.