How to take better snow pictures.
Looking out of my window this morning & seeing a beautiful 4-6 inch covering of pristine white snow, and then going onto facebook and seeing some dull grey snow pictures, I thought I’d write a quick tip on snow pictures.My No 2 tip – use exposure compensation.
Some of you may be wondering why your pictures aren’t as beautifully white as they should be, and what does exposure compensation mean. |
| Your camera, whether it’s a sophisticated dSLR, a compact or your phone, has a meter inside which measures the amount of light, and adjusts the exposure to create an evenly lit image. It does this by balancing what it “sees” and averaging the bright areas & dark areas to try give an overall mid grey. In snow pictures, the camera doesn’t know you’re taking a picture of snow, so it tries to average out all that white to a mid grey… and its usually quite successful, hence the dull grey photos. The solution is you use your camera’s exposure compensation setting. This is usually accessed by pressing a button labled with a +/-, and then pressing an up/down controller or rotating a control wheel – check your manual if you can’t find it. Most modern smart phones will have an exposure compensation setting as well. It’s often accessed by tapping the screen & then a exposure icon will appear which might look like a sun or small circle half black/half white – tap it and a slider will appear. So how much adjustment should you apply and in what direction. Typically you will have a range from -3 to +3. To make your snow look beautiful & white I would recommend a setting of +1.5, possible even a bit more if its a bright sunny day. Have fun experimenting until your snow looks beautiful & white. |