Snow shooting with 20D questions

I was shooting these wild powder shoots in Muskoka last weekend after over 3 1/2 feet of virgen snow fell it was wild. My question is this the snowscape of the trees had no EC on and everything is gray so I know what I did wrong there but for the snowmobile shots the EC was at +2/3 and the exposure was all over the place sometimes good somtimes gray. I was in Av mode with the Av stopped down from open about 3 stops for some DOF. My question is this when I look at the historgam and see hump in the middle and nothing at each end what do I change to get the hump streached from one side the the other evenly of will I always have to use PS and levels? All thes are right out of the camera shot JPEG with no editing at all except for size. I just got 20D about a month ago and these are the most exciting pic's I have taken. The extra speed of the 20D from my 300D was a blast I just wish I could get good results with out PS. The 2nd shot here is good IT is the first one and acouple in the next post which are screwy

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The meter in your camera looks at the world and want to make everything 18% grey. If you follow your meter reading when there's lots of snow around that snow will be 18% grey (and in colour more or less 18% blue). Snow in this context need to be over exposed. It could be a tricky thing since overexposing it but keeping it from being pure white doesn't leave much room for error. But I think that it would be better to have WHITE snow rather than grey/blue.

I'd put the camera on Manual and shoot something like the snowmobiles close up. I'd check the histogram and see what the exposure looked like. Then I'd shoot the rest of the assignment based on that exposure. As soon as you widen your composition the snow is going to indicate a hug overexposure that you'll have to ignore.

these I would say are ok but still a little off

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These are completally gray and blue and an example of the bad ones.The exposures are all over the place and if I look at the hitsogram there is just on pig hump right in the middle. When I see that what do I change to strech it out the EC or something else? In these shots the sun had been covered by a passing cloud but on other photo's with the sun out and the EC whare I had it things look OK. Are these what youwould consider a photogtaphically difficault conditions that would give even experienced people a hard time or is that I still have alot to learn?

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I would take a picture of the well lit snow and use that image for your custom white balance (or at least manually choose daylight, cloudy or shade as appropriate and stick with it). As for EC, I'd just leave it at +2 or thereabouts assuming the lighting will be the same in most shots and sunny. You'll have to play with this a little. This will ensure similar color in the photos, and close exposures. Also, shoot in RAW - so when you import them you can further make white balance and exposure adjustments.

If lighting is constant, I'ld set the camera to M rather then Av. On Av there's no way to accurately set EC, since there will be more snowmobile and less snow in one shot then in another. Therefore metering results will differ from shot to shot...

If I put it in M then what do I look at as a base line to set up the exposure for because like you said sometimes their is more snowmoblle than snow but at other times their is more snow than mobile. These shoots were taken with 2 lenses my 18-125 and my 70-300 whare you are zooming in and out while trying to fallow the action. I also have shoots not so close whare the snowmobile is further away from me and their is 80% snow at least.

I've had good luck shooting snowscapes and motorsports by shooting in Raw, with 2/3 stop overexposure, and a circular polarizer, in either Tv or Av mode. Center focus point and metering set to average. Slight levels and curves adjustment in RSP. Auto sat normal/normal and USM in PSP X. Couple of examples below shot of course with 20D, 70-200L 2.8 I/S, and 1.4x T-Con.

Cheers,
Tom

When in M, meter a bright patch of snow, set it at +2 in the meter, shoot, check histogram to see it doesn't blow out, adjust if needed. Shoot away. As long as the light doesn't change, neither should aperture or time. No matter how much snow / mobile in the frame. Illumination is the same, so exposure should be as well. Beware of clouds though

Tom, in the first two pics, the blacks are completely black (no detail whatsoever in tires / clothing) . I don't think they should be.
first also has blown out whites... Apart from that, nice captures.