Taking pictures in the Snow

Techniques for digital photography in the snow. It can be a great  disappointment when you have been out on a glorious snowy winter's day or away on a sking holiday and return home to look at your pictures and find they are too dull and dark.  Snow scenes can suffer from the syndrome "you should have been there it looked amazing".

A camera has a built in metering system that assumes the contrast range is normal with a wide range of tones from black to white. It takes an average from this reading and makes that mid grey. When the subject is predominantly white, such as snow, the camera is fooled, the light meter stops down to balance the tones and causes the file to be underexposed. Changing the f-stop to allow more light into the lens will make your photographs bright, punchy and vibrant.

Check the histogram at each f-stop adjustment as this can give you an idea of what is really happening to the file; the highlights should be just inside the right end.

A white balance adjustment may be needed when processing the pictures as winter light is quite blue.

Top Tip
Remember that the batteries in the camera will not last as long in the cold so take some spares and keep them warm in your pocket.

Good ideas for winter photographs.
Early morning frost covered plants and leaves, spiders' webs twinkling with frozen dew or graphic abstract patterns from the haw frost, rocks against the snow, icicles and reflections in water. Many images will also lend themselves to black and white conversion later.