Snow photography - learn the tricks for perfect winter images

Snow photography - when to shoot

As with all photography the lighting is very important. The sunlight during the early morning and late afternoon make great opportunities for stunning images because of the reflections and beautiful colors in the snow and ice at this times.

Paraglider landing on frozen lake

As the winter days are shorter you do not need to be up as early in the morning as during summer to shoot the sunrise and you do not have to stay up late for sunset shooting.

One of the big challenges in snow photography is the high contrast between shadows and highlights in the image. You have to find a balance between darks and lights so details and texture are kept in both.

How to expose in snow and bright light conditions

When photographing snow most of the landscape is white or extremely bright. Snow is known to trick camera meters to give false exposures. A camera meter is designed to evaluate lights and darks, average them and give you a neutral grey or middle tone neutral reading. In snow photography the meter is fooled to think it is measuring lights and darks and then giving a neutral grey reading. As most of the frame is white or very bright in snow conditions the meter will underexpose and the snow will end up gray and not white - very disappointing.

Most of us want the snow to appear white. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to prevent the snow getting grey. You will need to overexpose from the meter reading. A good idea is to switch the camera to Manual mode and shoot the images overexposed. Alternatively you can use the camera exposure compensation. The amount of overexposure necessary varies depending on the lighting conditions and how white you want your snow to look. As a rule of thumb you can try with 1 - 2 1/2 stops.

Afternoon sun shining on frozen tree

Use the LCD and histogram

A good thing with digital cameras is most of them can show the histogram of the image on the LCD. Learning how to interpret the histogram is very useful. If not you can just have a look at the image on the LCD and decide of yourself if it is how you like it to be or not. If now you make the needed adjustments and shoot again.

Shoot in RAW or adjust white balance

Snow is very seldom white as it picks up reflections which change its color. A blue sky casts a blue/gray reflection on snow. If your camera have RAW mode I recommend you to shoot in RAW. This way you can correct any unwanted color cast at the computer later. When shooting RAW you do not need to bother about the white balance setting as this as well can be corrected in and imaging software later.

In snow photography if you do not shoot in RAW the best option is to set the white balance to daylight. On a day with a clear blue sky you will most likely experience the blue cast in your images anyhow. The alternative is to set the white balance manually. This can be quite challenging but it is possible. To some extent you can correct the blue cast in your image software even if you did not shoot in RAW.

Use fill flash

When shooting people or animals in snow it is a good idea to use a fill flash to to reduce contrast. You should set your flash compensation to -1 to -1.5 stops to avoid the image looking unnatural.

Now as you know how to handle tricky snow photography read on here and get some ideas on what you can shoot during winter time.


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