Winter is coming! How to shoot in Snow? Please help. Thanks

[taboxo]

Hi all... winter is coming. So, I'll do some snowboarding in Tahoe. I'm hoping to get some pictures on my 350D/rebel xt, and i am planning to shoot both scenery and 'park' shots. Due to the fact that snow is very very bright...

Anyone got any tips for shooting in the snow ?

Any tips on taking care of gear in cold conditions (not frost up the mirror and other glass surfaces)?

What shutter speed and ISO should i use?

What kind of len should i use?

Thank you so much.

[Todd Jacobsen]

You will probably need an ND filter.

The glare from the snow creates so much light that you can only shoot at apeture settings of +f11 at the widest, and probably a lot higher due to the altitude (which actually creates more glare).

Keep camera in a bag exposed to the cold. Taking the camera from a warm environment to a cold one will cause the frosting.

The cold temps will also impact battery life.

If shooting skiers on the slopes, keep subjects closer to the trees. This will give more constrast as well as increase visiblity on foggy days. The old rule is to stick close to the trees when skiing while in fog because fog tends to stays away from objects.

[Eagle]

+1 exposure compensation for the snow.

As far as anything else it depends what all is in your shot, how bright the sun is at the time. Just like any other scene. Depends on light and colors and everything else. You can bracket your shots.
Take a shot and check your histogram and adjust accordingly.

[Tapeman]

Wear long johns & over expose your shots.

[ScottE]

When shooting in snow your histogram is your best friend. Adjust exposure compenstation to keep the graph in the range, preferrably to the right of the range if there is a lot of snow in the image.

Don't blow out the highlights.

[robertwgross]

Exposure compensation varies with the type of snow. For fresh bright snow, figure on +1.5, then maybe +1.0 after it has been down for a while. Even the oldest, dirtiest snow needs at least +0.5 more or less.

---Bob Gross---

[deedas]

I was gonna ask this too, since I'm going snowboarding in a few weeks. Thnx a lot for all the info guys.

[Maureen Souza]

You can also meter your light reading off the sky if it is blue. That will help prevent your white snow from looking gray.

I am planning a winter photo shoot in Yosemite....first time doing a snow shoot. Now only if we could get some precipitation around here

[MattL]

Photographing on snow is perhaps my favourite enviroment to shoot it, And live in for that matter.
I love it because I can finally get those superhigh shutter speeds I always long for in the dark.

You wont need above ISO 100.

The cold will have a big effect on your batteries - much more than you would expect. Keep any spares in a warm jacket pocket close to your body.

I've attached a couple of my favourite snow pics. Its starting summer here, im feeling withdrawl symptons from the snow!

[MattL]

Err, sorry about the size of these. They didnt seem to resize to my normal web size for some reason.

One other thing;
If stopping to take a photo in a busy area, be sensible and make sure you can be seen. Cross your skis/poles into the ground to make an X a few yards up from where you are standing.

A Good hard case is also a good idea, my pelican case will take just about anything i can throw at it before damanging my camera.

[SmilesforLife]

Very nice Matt.

[primoz]

It's not all that hard when you follow few basic things. I'm shooting bunch of World Cup skiing so I can actually tell this from my own experiences
First thing you do is to turn of automatics and switch to manual... at least when shooting sport (for landscape it's different). Then get something kinda grey (grey card would be perfect but I usually just don't bother). Measure that, put about +2/3 to +1 stop of compensation and that's it. Snow will be to bright so you will lose details on snow, but it will be white not grey, and skier, or in your case snowboarder, will be lit correctly. I usually set iso to 200-400 depends on situation and depends on what I'm trying to do. And there's no problem with frost on lens if you keep your camera cold. If you are bringing it from warm to cold and back then you will have problems.

[Mike Smith]

I can't believe no one has mentioned a gray card yet.

Also shoot in RAW so you can adjust your white balance later. Using auto white balance will usually turn your snow gray.