- This topic is empty.
Photographing Snow Scenes
-
I think this might be a pertinent question for the current season.
I’m hoping to have the opportunity to shoot scenes soon, and was wondering about general tips for exposure compensation as I will be shooting film and won’t be able to chimp.I read in a magazine that if you spot meter bright snow, you can up the exposure, they suggest +2 to put it in a higher zone. Another point was that snow in shadow on a bright day should be about mid grey so you can spot meter this.
Now I only have a incident/reflective meter, so could I just do a similar +2 if my fov is mainly snow (or should I be more cautious)?
If it is feasible to incident meter, is it a straight incident meter or are there issues with the high reflectivity of snow?If it is relevant, I plan to use a 100 film, Delta or Acros.
I know this probably a “it really depends on conditions” type of question but are there any general starting points.Thanks,
Martin
The best way is to use a an incident reading but only if your in the same light as the subject or landscape. Dont change the reading, just transfer it to the camera. i use incident reading 90% of the time for all my picture taking not just snow…
If you don’t have an incident light meter or cant use one as your standing in different light I used to just take a center weighted reflective reading. Used to over expose up tp 1 stop for slide film or up to 2 stops for negative film depending on how bright it was. For very important shots when taking a reflective reading bracket i used to bracket either side, I never bracket for incident as it normally always resulted in a properly exposed picture…
You will hear about gray cards and all that, i never bothered with them, the above works 95% of the time for me.
M
Thanks Martin
that’s given me a bit of confidence, hopefully I’ll get out in the cold soon.M
Great advice Martin, lots of the mags and books will say over expose but half the time dont say by how much, oh! and dont forget to cancel this on your camera when your finished shooting snow scenes, I’ve made the mistake and you do feel pretty stupid when you cop to taking overexposed scenes in regular conditions.
A question a bit related to the subject. I have just return from Norway where have experienced temperatures of -42 at some stage. I noticed ,while looking through some of the photos taken in extreme conditions, a slight blue-ish color cast. Is the extreme temperatures affecting the WB or is just the sensor coping (or not coping) with the cold? Beside this slight blue color cast, the camera (a Nikon D700) behaved absolutely normal. What amazed me was the battery life and despite the cold temperatures I have been able to get 5-6hours out of it. The lenses also behaved normal ( Nikon 24-70 f/2.8, 80-200 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8). The zoom was a bit stiff but nothing you cannot live with. The only thing that died was the GPS (one of them thank God).
The colder the environment – the longer the battery life (cooler metal has higher resistance, so less current draw from the battery)
The high reflectivity and possibly higher altitudes may well have caused the blue-cast as a result of UV Light sensitivities. A UV-Filter is ideal in this situation. You can try HSL adjustments to possibly desaturate the blue & purple components a little bit (outside of the wb/temp corrections that would be done after this adjustment)Halpin. Thank you for your answer. I thought that the cold is supposed to suck the life out of a battery but I could be wrong.
The funny part is that some of the files (NEF) displayed a slight blue cast and in some cases even some posterisation when opened in Lightroom. However, the same files displayed perfectly fine in Capture NX with no sign of blue cast or posterisation. Figure that out…I presume this shows once again the huge difference when it comes to Raw Converters. ( I know..I used the Nikon profiles in Lightroom)
UV filter..hmm…it could be a solution. I have 4-5 somewhere in a drawer but still not using them. I am thinking..why put a 100euro piece of glass in front of a 2000 euro lens?? 8)one might be reading the JPEG-set White Balance and applying that during RAW import, and the other not (perhaps performing auto WB instead of ‘as shot’) amongst other possible reasons certainly worth looking in to further!!
I am not an expert in what happens inside Lightroom or Capture NX but I dont think that they are reading the Jpeg set WB (I could be wrong ). My opinion is that while Capture NX knows exactly the WB for each NEF file ( since its been developed for Nikon), Lightroom is only guessing. Otherwise I cannot explain how same shot done with a Custom WB ( using a graycard or WhiBal) looks completely different in LR then on NX. The closest to reality..NX. No wonder Lightroom got the lowest score in Thom Hogan’s review.
I was shooting in -25C a while ago in northern canada, and it did suck the life out of the batteries…however, the 5D’s batteries held up well. It was the 1Dmk2n that suffered more. Neither ran out in about 3 hours in it, but they quickly went from the full marker to half full within an hour…but kept going. The video camera wasn’t so lucky, 5 mins in that temp and it told us it wouldnt’ turn on because of low temps!
And said, for shooting film, whatever the scene, get a lightmeter! They’re cheap for what they actually do!
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
