Shooting in the snow

[Johnnynf]

I know this topic has been discussed before, but after conducting a search of the forum, I still have many questions. We got two fairly decent snowfalls in the last week. I am a teacher, and we had two days off from school last week due to the snow. With this free time, I thought I would go to some of the local parks and take some pictures of the "snowscape" with my DRebel. As I have never done this before, I think the results were good. However, I have a few questions. What advice can any of you offer into shooting the snow. I played around with the exposure compensation a little, and one of two things usually happened. 1: when I left the exposure to the camera, the snow usually was washed out, providing no detail whatsoever...but the trees in the background were wonderful...or...2: when I purposefully underexposed the pictures, the histogram said I was right on...but the pictures were pretty dark...I could see more detail in the snow, but the snow was kind of gray and the trees in the background were too dark. Even after lightening the pictures in photoshop, the trees were still too dark. Am I just going to have to live with this tradeoff? I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but when I took the pictures, it was very overcast. Any pictures I have seen on this forum of the snow are all on sunny days. Any help that you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

[Jorgo]

If you want the trees to brighten up, and the snow to become whiter, OVERexpose. The camera tries to make the snow grey, so it already UNDERexposes. It's clever, but kinda dumb. Force the snow to be white, and ADD some exposure compensation.

The Histogram should not be 'perfect' with all of that white in the picture.

[Jesper]

When you make photos of something very bright like snow, it's usually best to use a bit of exposure compensation to the + side, for example +1/2 or +1.

This works because of the following: Your camera's light metering system is calibrated to the brightness of average gray ("18% gray"). That means that in evaluative metering mode, the camera will determine the exposure so that the average brightness of the whole image is 18% gray. Snow is brighter than 18% gray, so if you let the camera decide without exposure compensation, it will tend to make the snow too dark (gray) instead of white. By setting exposure compensation to +1/2 or +1, you deliberately overexpose a little bit, so that the snow becomes white.

If you have other (darker) things besides the snow in the photo, you should take this into account also - the less snow, the less it's necessary to use + exposure comp.

You wrote that sometimes the snow was washed out - probably you had some darker things in the photo that the camera tried to make lighter, and the snow was overexposed.

Use the histogram to check your exposure after making a photo. Here's an interesting article about using the histogram to check exposure: Understanding Histograms (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml).

On the 10D (which I have), you can set the LCD review to "On (Info)" (instead of just "On"), so that the camera displays the image and the histogram and other parameters after you make the photo. Probably it works the same on the Digital Rebel.

[Johnnynf]

Thanks guys, great info. Jesper, you are correct, when the snow was wahsed out, there were many other things in the photograph that were darker. Basically, the snow was in the foreground, with trees and such in the background. I would post a copy of the picture to show you what I am talking about, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that on here yet. You wrote in your reply that "probably you had some darker things in the photo that the camera tried to make lighter, and the snow was overexposed"...so my question then is, how do you solve for this? Do I use no exposure compensation if the majority of the picture is things other than snow?

Jorgo:

You say in your reply that I should overexpose to "force the snow to be white"...will this lose any of the detail of the snow (i.e. foot prints, etc)? The problem is that in the pictures that I put no EC in, the snow was already white...too white, burnt out in fact. Won't overexposing make this worse?

I am truly sorry if these questions are dumb. Obviously, I am a beginner.

[eric1]

hey Johnny,
i'm in Missouri too. lets go shooting.

thanks,
eric1

[robertwgross]

Hey, Eric, I'm from Missouri. Show me.

I shoot mostly California snow. For fresh new snow on a bright day, I will set my exposure compensation to +2 or +1.5. Then for old snow, maybe only +1, and for a bad day with other stuff in the frame besides snow, maybe 0 or +0.5.

Damn, I haven't seen Missouri snow for a long time. It used to be knee-deep by this time in the winter.

---Bob Gross---

[dtrayers]

One of the reasons it's difficult to shoot snow scenes is the large range of exposure values. The snow is quite bright and there may be parts of the scene in deep shadow (like people's faces).

Your eyes can accomodate this dynamic range, but the camera can only handle 5 or 6 stops. Without resorting techniques like blending in Photoshop or using graduated ND filters, it'll be a compromise at best.

The advice given above is very sound. Use the histogram to check your exposure and keep it as right as possible without blowing highlights.

Here's some thoughts by Michael Reichmann (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/exposing_snow.shtml).

[eric1]

hi Bob,
thanks for the tips. we don't get too much of the knee deep variety
around here, unless your about a foot tall. :lol: i need to get some
space somewhere so i can post some shots of home for you. really
though, Cali must be nice.

thanks,
eric1

[UK_Terry]

Shoot in RAW & Bracket.

i shot this one with a S45 F8 1/125s

and then used Curves in PS to get the white Correct.

http://www.robinsfc.co.uk/Forum_Posts/poland1104.jpg

[PaulB]

On film the usual exposure compensation for snow is 2 stops more exposure than the meter suggests. I have no reason to think that digital is too different.

[Johnnynf]

eric1,

Where in St. Louis do you live? I live in Columbia now, but grew up in Warrenton (yes, the place with the outlet mall). All of the snow lately has been great for photography but with all of the cancelled school, I will be teaching until July it seems like.

[robertwgross]

Johnny, it used to be that you could get some good shots on the Main Quadrangle. If there is a new snowfall, the columns look kind of nice.

Of course, when I was there, I think they were trying to figure out how to carve those columns out of rock.

---Bob Gross---

[eric1]

Johnny,
i live just accross the river in IL.(not E.St.Louis!)i'm a roof inspector. i get
out to Columbia at least once a month, on my way to K.C. i cover a large
area. all the way through Kansas. do you know where Bob speaks of?
sounds cool. any way i got one of those ugly silver DSLR's too :lol:
email me- eric1@junglemate.com, and thanks for the info Bob, i love
architechture!


thanks,
eric1

[robertwgross]

do you know where Bob speaks of? sounds cool.

Go to the main MU campus. The main quadrangle is in the center, and there are plenty of old historic buildings, if you like to shoot that sort of thing. Greek columns right in the center. Buildings there and to the west are red brick, so it is called the Red Campus. Buildings there and to the east are light colored rock, so it is called the White Campus. I don't think the trees blossom until April.

When I went to school there, sometime during the Hoover Administration, I think, we mostly just tried to shoot photos of the pretty girls walking to class. But the serious photographers will set up a tripod on one corner of the main quad and get shots with the columns, winter style trees, and Jesse Hall behind. Nature photography is more like a few miles southeast of campus along Hinkson Creek.

---Bob Gross---

[Johnnynf]

Robert,

Actually, some of my "snow" shooting was actually done on the Quad. I also shot a few pics of Memorial Union and the new "south quad"...pretty new, maybe you haven't seen it yet. If I could figure out how to post pictures on here, I would. If you want, leave me a PM and give me an email address, I can send some pictures of MU to you that way. I also went to shoot at Capen Park. There are some pretty big cliffs and a small bridge that crosses a creek. My pictures taken on campus turned out pretty good, but as I talked about earlier, my pictures at the park were difficult to get good exposure on...snow in the foreground and lots of trees/cliff in the background.

[Johnnynf]

By the way, the "creek" of which I speak is actually Hinkson Creek.