In Winter Photography Tips Part 1, I offered some technical and gear related tips to make shooting in the winter more enjoyable. In Winter Photography Tips Part 2, I discuss one of winter photography’s biggest challenges, proper exposure of snow. I will discuss how you can recognize and compensate for this problem. Additionally, I offer creative tips that will improve and add interest to your winter photographs.

Exposure
Do you ever get grey snow in your pictures? If so, this is probably why. In winter, there are often vast areas of white snow that can fool even the best camera’s light meter into an improper exposure. A camera’s built-in light meter works with reflected light; light from the source reflected off the scene to your camera. The meter assumes that all subjects are of average color, and reflect average light off the subject. An average scene reflects approximately 18 percent of the light falling on it, equivalent to a mid-tone grey. No matter how good your light meter is, it will start to have problems whenever it tries to measure a scene where the light reflection is different from this average 18 percent.

Snow scenes are a prime example. White snow being highly reflective reflects much more than the usual 18 percent of available light. A camera meter measures the light using its 18 percent calibration, and the result is a large degree of under-exposure causing the snow to look grey. This situation is notorious for fooling auto exposure functions on cameras.

Now that you understand what your camera is doing, you are ready to correct for its shortcomings. Fool your light meter. To represent snow in a scene properly, you need to counteract the under-exposure that renders it grey. By over-exposing from the meter reading, you will make snow white again.

Making Snow White
To help you determine a correct exposure, here is a rule of thumb. Bright white snow in bright sunlight will be about two f stops brighter than 18 percent grey. That means your camera meter will underexpose the scene by two f stops. Therefore, you will need to overexpose by two f stops to render the scene properly.

Be careful however, snow does not always have the same reflectance. Especially under light conditions other than bright sunlight. Pay close attention to how snow actually looks. Then consider how you want it to appear in your photo. Sometimes snow actually is grey. In this case, accurately representing snow may need less of an exposure adjustment: 1 and 1/3 stop, 1-stop, or less.

It is a good idea to bracket exposures whenever you’re in doubt. If you are shooting digital, and your camera displays a histogram, you can easily check your exposure and with a few test shots make adjustments until the histogram looks correct. Be aware that if the snow occupies only a small portion of the image, your in-camera’s matrix metering mode will probably expose it correctly.

Techniques For Exposure Compensation

Exposure Compensation Dial
Many cameras have an exposure compensation setting. Even many of today’s point & shoot cameras offer this. By dialing this adjustment to +2, you trick your camera into always overexposing by 2-stops. This allows you to shoot in automatic or set your manual settings as the meter indicates while in actuality it will be overexposing by two stops giving you the desired exposure. Dial it to +1, you over expose by 1-stop. This is a nice way to go if you are shooting in a consistently lit scene in automatic or if you don’t want to be thinking about making corrections in manual. Just remember to change it back when you are done.

Change your ISO / ASA Film Speed Setting
If you camera does not have an exposure compensation dial you can achieve the same effect by changing your ISO / ASA setting. Every halving of the ISO / ASA setting results in a 1-stop overexposure For example lowering the setting from 400 to 100 achieves a 2-stop overexposure. Changing the setting from 200 to 125 is a 1.7 stop overexposure.

Meter Off The Sky Or A Known Value
A trick I use often is to meter off a known value, and lock that exposure using my camera’s exposure lock button or a manual setting. For example, a clear blue sky will meter at 18 percent and thus give you a good meter reading for a sunlit scene. Fill the frame edge to edge with the clear blue sky, get an exposure, lock in the exposure, and recompose the shot. A spot meter works very well for this especially of you cannot fill your camera’s frame with only sky or your known value.

If you have an 18 percent grey card, which I often carry, you will be able to obtain a correct exposure setting by placing the card in the same lighting as your subject and spot metering off the card.

White Is White, But Snow Isn’t Always White
You have just learned know how to adjust your exposure when taking a meter reading off sunlit snow using your camera’s built-in reflected-light meter. However, to get great snow shots, you have to learn to see the snow as it actually is. Notice that sometimes you don’t want the snow to be white because it actually is not white. Snow in shade is bluish. Snow under an overcast sky is grayish.

Study The Light
Observe how the light on a subject or location changes in character, color, and quantity throughout the day. In winter, the sun is lower in the sky creating greater contrast between highlight and shadows. This makes for great side lighting and backlighting. Early morning and late afternoon sun provides a wonderful warm light for winter landscapes. Mid-day light tends to be more cool or blue. By controlling the color tones of snow in your photo, you can alter the atmosphere of an image.

White Balance
White snow will often fool the auto white balance of most digital cameras. Learn to set your white balance manually. The daylight setting will often work well. However, since snow tends to reflect the sky it can assume a bluish cast on a clear, sunny day, especially in shadow areas. Try changing your white balance to the shade setting to add warmth.

Filters
Although color correction filters aren’t usually necessary with digital cameras, a UV or warming filter can be useful as a barrier against moisture with any camera. Since snow has a very high UV reflectivity, (80-90%) a UV filter isn’t a bad idea. For film cameras, a warming filter like an 81a or 81b will help warm the bluish cast in snow and shade. Polarizing filters are great for increasing color saturation and contrast, particularly the sky. Be careful with the polarizer in the winter however. Snowy winter scenes can often have a lot of contrast to begin with and a polarizer can easily push your level of contrast over the edge.

Texture And Shadows
Ice and snow formations usually have texture, shadow, and patterns. To accentuate these, meter only the brightest part of the ice or snow and try adjusting your exposure by setting your camera for plus + 1/2 to 1-stop. This will allow the shadows to “fill in” and reveal the texture. Shooting in the early morning and late afternoon when the sun angle is low to the horizon will also accentuate the texture and shadows.

A Touch of Color
Snow is very pretty, but photographically a little snow goes a long way. You can add interest and color to snow shots simply by including a colorful object or two in your composition. The colorful object can be incidental, or the main subject of the photo. Keep your eyes peeled for colorful items to include in your snow.

Flash
Most people don’t think of using flash outdoors. Nevertheless, if you are shooting a winter photograph, using a flash will bring out details in shadows and highlights otherwise absent.

Falling Snow
To capture falling snowflakes with a blur try a shutter speed of about 1/60th of a second. This allows snowflakes to blur slightly giving a snowflake the appearance of a larger size and motion. A dark background will allow your snowflakes will stand out more.

With a little practice, you will develop a feel for how to expose snow to show it the way you want in your photos. Recognizing this exposure problem and correcting for it before you press the shutter is what will help you master exposure and create fabulous pictures with advanced exposure techniques.