snow tips

[xaiya]

hi all
i'm planning on going to the snow in a few weeks, just wondering if there are any specific things i should do to get great exposures?...i've heard white balance can give grief?

[dbax]

yeah I'm racking my brain trying to think.....I've read it somewhere, something about white balance and overexposure.... when are you going ? if I can find it in the next few days I'll let you know:D
BTW Hi:o

[Empire]

The snow will throw off your metering .. try EV+1 as a starting point. I used it fairly successfully whilst on holiday.

Its a bit rough and ready but serves as a reasonable basis.

[ricktas]

We had the same question recently : Look here for more info : http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=34630

[xaiya]

excellent, many thanks :)

[dbax]

We had the same question recently : Look here for more info : http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=34630

thanks Rick thats what I was thinking about but could'nt find.
Hope it helped, look forward to seeing the photos:D

[arthurking83]

.... just wondering if there are any specific things i should do to get great exposures?...i've heard white balance can give grief?

I think exposure depends greatly on the actual conditions you experience rahter than just a general rule of thumb!
Many say expose with +1Ev, and while that works OK in a lot of cases, it will fail dismally in others, and that depends on the scene.
Last year I took the kiddies(6 and 8) to the snow and the conditions were blizzard like.
My better shots came out at -0.7Ev, but as I really only use spot metering, and I know I can recover a lot of detail in PP at that setting. I do have a few faves taken at +0.7 - 1.0Ev as well, and I think they were taken using matrix metering.
So be watchful of your metering mode, understand when to use spot or matrix(where matrix averages the light in the entire scene) and take a few test shots(exposure bracketing, if your camera has it is a most valuable tool to learn with).

As for WhiteBalance! shoot raw! :th3: if not or if you want to not deal with it, then shoot daylight/sunny if the sun is out and cloudy if it's overcast. I reckon shoot in AutoWB mode in RAW!!.... and only fix those that 'need' it, once you get home onto the PC.

ps. what camera(body)?

[cjphotography]

i went to the snow about 3 days ago for a week to nz if you want have a look at my album that can be seen here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseyjohnphotography/sets/72157622028268974/

i honestly thought i was going to struggle with snow too as i've heard alot about white balance but mainly over-exposing. I didn't have a problem with both, they may come out a tad darker on the LCD but i think that is the safer option rather to over-expose them, but just make sure you shoot RAW =]

most of the time i was just using AV & TV and my EV values always set on 0.

[bigdazzler]

i went to the snow about 3 days ago for a week to nz if you want have a look at my album that can be seen here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseyjohnphotography/sets/72157622028268974/

i honestly thought i was going to struggle with snow too as i've heard alot about white balance but mainly over-exposing. I didn't have a problem with both, they may come out a tad darker on the LCD but i think that is the safer option rather to over-expose them, but just make sure you shoot RAW =]

most of the time i was just using AV & TV and my EV values always set on 0.

Reason most say to up your EV comp when shooting snow is to ensure that your white snow is rendered white, and not a dull ugly grey colour. Your cameras meter will always try and expose any given scene at 18% neutral grey. When the meter sees all that white, it says to itself " wow theres lots of bright white on this scene I better underexpose a tad to compensate" , this is why your snow ends up looking grey.

Try this, keep your camera in semi manual mode ( either Tv/S, or Av/A) and take a few test shots at EV+1, if the whites are too bright or blown, back the EV off to +1/3 or +2/3 until it looks right .. best way to determine your range is by using your histogram !! The LCD will be very misleading.

Good luck .. :)

[xaiya]

Many say expose with +1Ev, and while that works OK in a lot of cases, it will fail dismally in others, and that depends on the scene.
Last year I took the kiddies(6 and 8) to the snow and the conditions were blizzard like.
My better shots came out at -0.7Ev, but as I really only use spot metering, and I know I can recover a lot of detail in PP at that setting.
So be watchful of your metering mode, understand when to use spot or matrix(where matrix averages the light in the entire scene) and take a few test shots(exposure bracketing, if your camera has it is a most valuable tool to learn with).

As for WhiteBalance! shoot raw! :th3: if not or if you want to not deal with it, then shoot daylight/sunny if the sun is out and cloudy if it's overcast. I reckon shoot in AutoWB mode in RAW!!.... and only fix those that 'need' it, once you get home onto the PC.

ps. what camera(body)?

thanks for the reply arthurkink83,

yes I found that most of my shooting was on +1Ev and +0.7Ev...i'm a sucker for spot metering most of the time too...the conditions were also blizzard like when I was up there, but found that it wasn't too much of a problem.

As for Wb...i usually adjust it according to the lighting conditions...but as you say when shooting in RAW it isn't too much of a problem.
I was shooting with my d90 with kit lens 18-105.





i honestly thought i was going to struggle with snow too as i've heard alot about white balance but mainly over-exposing.

yeah, i thought that was going to be a big issue...but for me also everything seemed to turn out ok.


Reason most say to up your EV comp when shooting snow is to ensure that your white snow is rendered white, and not a dull ugly grey colour. Your cameras meter will always try and expose any given scene at 18% neutral grey. When the meter sees all that white, it says to itself " wow theres lots of bright white on this scene I better underexpose a tad to compensate" , this is why your snow ends up looking grey.

Try this, keep your camera in semi manual mode ( either Tv/S, or Av/A) and take a few test shots at EV+1, if the whites are too bright or blown, back the EV off to +1/3 or +2/3 until it looks right .. best way to determine your range is by using your histogram !! The LCD will be very misleading.

Good luck .. :)

thanks bigdazzler, I did end up using aperture and shutter priority most of the time which seemed to work well (along with the EV+1 to +0.7) although now that you have mentioned the grey thing, looking back a a fair few of my shots that do appear grey...but PP wise that isn't too hard to fix ^.^


thanks everyone for all of your great advice, it helped alot! below are a couple of PP pics...i edited these a few weeks back, but now to me they look a little bit over the top :/

might go back and play with the wb levels and such

[arthurking83]

going by these images I'd say the trip was still a success, despite the blizzard like conditions!

the last image is particularly nice, and the blizzard like conditions probably helped a little.

the second last image looks 'interesting'.. why the half toning with a graduated magenta/purple shift?
Interesting, both aesthetically and technically :confused013

[xaiya]

the second last image looks 'interesting'.. why the half toning with a graduated magenta/purple shift?
Interesting, both aesthetically and technically :confused013

heheh a confused interesting...hmm well at first i just wanted to make it look cooler (in the cold sense)...and then went a bit over the top i think...it's a definite one that i need to redo and tame down a bit :o

[arthurking83]

Nah! I meant interesting as in aesthetically.. ie. different.

I was playing with some of the bi colour filters and there's probably something in that kind of processing to please, and create something different.

btw! I noticed that you had the camera set to ISO500, but used a shutter speed of 1/1000s! :eek:

just some technical aspects to look out for. The D90 is more than capable of producing very good results at that ISO level, but if you want to recover any shadow details(brighten dark areas) higher ISO is a bad base to start off with.
In this case there is no issue, just a technical aspect to be weary of.

and look up the Auto ISO feature on the camera(in the manual). it's a handy feature to have enabled in variable conditions.

[aussiepomm]

Here are some shots in the snow, in Santiago Chile...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2443/3770910224_a51cf6ae82_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3445/3770109135_2125e98266_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2499/3770108839_4e176f5e2e_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2619/3770108533_8095f52470_b.jpg

AND, at 3645m with very thin air, we have the second highest peak:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2674/3770908120_dac101296f_b.jpg