Building on the basics of Shutter, Aperture and ISO to control Exposure.
Hi <<First Name>>,
I hope you had fun with cropping last month
Photographing snow is better if you are prepared to change a couple of things in your camera. First, if you are shooting right after a snow and the sky is gray the scene will be very dull looking. Hmmm…. That is because the camera tries to set the exposure after evaluating the very white scene to some middle blend of all colors to gray and will over expose the image.Use your exposure compensation control and drop it by one stop.
The other adjustment you will need to make is the white balance. If you don't get the white balance right the snow will take on a blueish tinge.
You can try cloudy (specially if it is a cloudy day), but I like to set it to 6000k manually and adjust up and down from there until I get a rendering that I think works well.
If you have a blah scene, get in tight and look for the contrast of the snow and the trees.
Place the white of the snowy branches against something dark to make them stand out.
And don't forget to use leading lines in your composition.
Frame your shot.Use the white of the snow to frame a dark subject.
Find animals that like the snow and use the white of the snow and a background to boost their coloring.
Document your location.
If the sky and the ground are the same color, either separate them by something dark or use a graduated neutral density filter to darken the sky.
Darkening the sky keeps the roof-line from just melting away.
Use color to add interest.
Hey how about you? Dress warm, use gloves without fingertips or mitten liners, use sun screen and lip balm, hand warmers and toe warmers are also good. Hand warmers are good too for keeping your batteries warm and charged up.Cold robs the juice out of batteries. Don't just throw then in your camera bag when you go out.If you don't have hand warmers put them in a pocket close to your body.In a pinch, Boil up some water and fill a bottle or flask and keep that in an inner pocket.
Lastly, let your camera acclimate with going from outdoors to indoor.Keep it in the bag so that it slowly warms or cools to prevent condensation.
Was this helpful? Is there something that you want to hear about? Send me a note and I'll try to get the topic developed.
Cheers,
Michael
P. S. If you have time, stop by the Manchester Memorial Hospital Gallery and see a couple for my prints there as well as many other fine pieces from area artists.
These photography tips newsletters are free. I do take quite a bit of time to prepare them though and if you would be so kind as to once in a while donate a couple of bucks for the cause it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.
