Bracketing on Nikon D5100, is it true bracketing?

Question

There is a bracketing feature on Nikon D5100 but it does not seem to work as it does on other cameras such as D90.

There is also a separate feature called HDR on D51000 and I am guessing Bracketing is being confused with it. HDR is totally different and should not be called bracketing? Can someone clarify this to me you can take 3 multiple shots with different exposure on Nikon D5100 and view them seperately?

Answer

The D5100 can bracket for exposure, which is what I suppose you call true bracketing. Technically this is AEB which stands for Auto-Exposure Bracketing.

It can also bracket for WB or Adaptive D-Lighting which is what people refer to as a virtual bracket because the camera takes ONE shot and saves it 3 times, with different WB or Adaptive D-Lighting setting.

There is ALSO a separate HDR feature which takes 3 shots of bracketed for exposure (AEB) but blends them together into one tone-mapped shot right in the camera. In this case only one image is saved onto the memory card. Technically this is closer to Exposure-Fusion but HDR is a better known acronym so most products say HDR instead.

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