Consumption mathematics: How panoramas and HDR “eat” resources

A landscape artist came to the workshop with a Nikon D810 with 210,000 frames in just 1.5 years of use. To my question, how he managed to take so many pictures, the photographer sighed: * “I shoot 360-degree spherical panoramas and HDR landscapes with 5-step bracketing!”*.

Let's do some simple arithmetic on the wear and tear of mechanical curtains.

The arithmetic of bracketing and HDR shooting

1. Exposure Bracketing (AEB):For one final HDR landscape stitched together a series of 3, 5 or 7 frames. 1 button press = 5 mechanical shutter shots! Made 100 HDR frames in walk - **500 activations** are added to the counter.
2. Interval time-lapse photography (Time-Lapse):To put together a short 10 second video dawn at 30 fps, you need to take **300 physical frames**. 10 rollers = **3,000 shutter shots** per one weekend!

How to save the shutter when shooting HDR and time-lapses?

• Use **interval shooting with an electronic shutter (Silent Interval Timer)** - on Nikon Z and mirrorless cameras In later mirrors D850/D780, the mechanics do not wear out at all.

Table of resource consumption in various types of shooting

Shooting type	Number of frames per 1 plot point	Shutter life rate
Single portrait/landscape	1 shooting	Standard (1x)
HDR bracketing (5 steps)	5 shootings	5 times faster (5x)
Spherical panorama in HDR	36 frames * 3 = 108 shots!	Extremely high (108x)