Traditionally, panoramas would be taken using a fixed manual exposure, bracketed if needed. But panoramic software has advanced to the point that they can handle the assembly and blending of source images taken with wildly different exposures. I am making available a set of files taken in Ripon Cathedral that shows the ease at which high contrast scenes can be tackled without having to take large amounts of bracketed photos.
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In this example, the base exposure throughout the scene varied by 6 stops (1/40th to 0.63s) hence there was a large amount of inter-frame contrast. But the contrast in any one frame (intra-frame) was just within the capabilities of my camera, hence I was able to take a 5+1+1 shooting pattern, without bracketing, and capture the scene without excessively blown highlights. This is variation of the usual 4+1+1 shooting pattern but with an extra shot that was taken aimed at the bright highlights of the sunlit windows.
This extra shot was masked into the rest of the pano and invoked for an “underexposed” export of the stitch in addition to the normally exposed export. Hugin has no problems in handling the differently exposed frames and after photometric optimisation, the frames blend seamlessly. The normal and underexposed versions were combined using Enfuse and minor edits performed.
Hopefully this example demonstrates that panoramic software tools have come a long way since the traditional advice of locking off exposure was formulated. With some practice, the use of autoexposure when taking panoramas can be quite effective in speeding up workflow and creating a more efficient workflow. Of course, judgement is still required to use where necessary bracketing in order to tame intra-frame (as opposed to inter-frame) contrast.