Help with Automatic Exposure Bracketing

I'm confused about the "Automatic Exposure Bracketing" in the Nikon d90. I need to know if I could get the three bracketed shots with only one press of the shutter. Do I have to use tripod to take three shots?. Thanks for your help.

I don't know about Nikon, so this is probably just useless information, but here goes: On an EOS body AEB would require 3 presses of the shutter release to get the three shots, but if you put the camera on timer, it will take all three in rapid succession.

Thanks EOS for your response. I should have been clearer in my question. I meant three bracketed shots "handheld with only one press of the shutter".

Requires 3 shutter releases on d80. Don't imagine its that much different on d90.

If I read you right you want to just press the shutter and end up with three exposures. I don't think any camera is capable of doing this. The physical has to change in there, be it the shutter speed, or aperture. I guess maybe three ISOs could be applied to a single click, but I don't know of any camera that does this, and that is basically the same as changing things in post processing. In recent reading I have learned that some ISO ranges are just in camera processing and not actual changes in sensor sensitivity.

You can accomplish this with good success by shooting RAW and then changing the EC in post processing. I have some experience with this and find it's not as effective as three separate exposures. Pushing or pulling a single RAW file often introduces unwanted artifacts or sensor behavior.

I am not sure to what ends you want to do this for, if it's for HDR then a tripod is definitely recommended, if not necessary. For and HDR shot with bracketed frames the objects in the frame have to be precisely lined up. The use of a single RAW frame has some appeal because you know that the frames are perfectly lined up, but like I said this may introduce some other flaws into the final product

What you are talking about is often called 'best-shot' technology. It isn't found in the d90. Mostly found in Point and Shoots that use an electronic virtual shutter to accomplish this handheld.

How it works basically is that the sensor buffer is cleared rapidly without closing the mechanical shutter. This is available more readily in the P/S that have video capability. There are some other ways to achieve this with greater or lesser degrees of success. You, the camera operator, are given little or no control over the parameters, just the end result to choose from! 5-10 frames are not that uncommon to get to pick the best image from, but the camera screen is small. If you save them all and this isn't always an option, you still have to spend time later and it does eat up more storage.

I've got a newer Sony point and shoot that has all kinds of optimizations based on a couple of different techniques and the end results still vary tremendously. Though I will admit this is getting better all the time. Let's say it is 90% effective!

Thanks to you all for your responses. I think I probably can shoot in the RAW+JPG mode and produce two or more different exposures from Raw (as you said EOS) + one JPG. I just don't find tripods to be practical most of the time.

Not sure about the D90, but on the D300 I set up the bracketing parameters (9 shots at a half stop apart, for example), set the camera to continuous shooting low speed or high speed (Cl or Ch) and then hold down the shutter release and the camera will take the required number of shots.