In camera HDR

I am new to the Nikon world being a recently converted owner of another well known brand and with limited digital dslr experience. I got a D7100 for Christmas. I want to do HDR but in camera only, for reasons known only to me and otherwise unexplainable. In camera HDR on the 7100 only allows stacking two images which limits the HDR effect. Short of post processing is there any way to accentuate the HDR effect using only the camera to do the HDR? I understand that the camera allows selection of low to high HDR effect but even at the highest level the HDR is very limited. Love the 7100 and hope to become proficient with it with two or three years practice. Thank for your help.

That is the only option. Not sure what you have against post processing but to really get the most out of your D7100 you are going to have to learn how to do post processing. There are several free programs out there that can get you started.

Unfortunately most in-camera HDR settings are Jpegs without much flexibility. You may be able to manipulate some of the in-camera Jpeg settings, but I doubt you'll gain much. You are far better off bracketing a series of 3-5 RAW images and merging them in an external program, Photomatix Essentials is a nice, inexpensive program to merge and tonemap in. From there you can finish it the post program of your liking (I prefer LR5).

I know that both replies are correct but just do not have the time to do any post exposure work on my photo's at this time, struggle to have time to use the camera at all. I was hoping someone might have some tips to apply to the in camera HDR settings to maximize the HDR effect without post exposure processing. Any suggestions?

I shoot with the D7100. You are limited with what you see with the in-camera HDR. It is something I tried ONCE and only ONCE. Without going to post processing you will do better with just shooting better photos.

I never bother with in-cam HDR.

I do a lot of HDR. 2 exposures are not enough for a good HDR result, in my opinion. Your in-camera options are very limited, as you already know (P. 115-116 of the D7100 manual). Nikon should have given us a 3 exposure auto HDR mode.

I find no noticeable benefit in going over 3 exposures.

My advice: Shoot raw, use the auto-bracketing feature (AE set to 3 exposures, increment by 1), and combine your photos in Photomatix Pro. You'll get much better results than the 'in-camera' HDR.

The HDR results will be worth making the time for.

I never bother HDR in camera or after in post the photos never look right.

NIKONIAN_DREAMWEAVER said:

I do a lot of HDR. 2 exposures are not enough for a good HDR result, in my opinion. Your in-camera options are very limited, as you already know (P. 115-116 of the D7100 manual). Nikon should have given us a 3 exposure auto HDR mode.

I find no noticeable benefit in going over 3 exposures.

My advice: Shoot raw, use the auto-bracketing feature (AE set to 3 exposures, increment by 1), and combine your photos in Photomatix Pro. You'll get much better results than the 'in-camera' HDR.

The HDR results will be worth making the time for.

Click to expand...

Will give this a try, thanks for the info