I am not experienced at all with shooting with snow. Seems tricky in terms of exposure, editing etc...

What I want to do is a bit specific. I am planning to make some shot in a cemetery close to were I live (Mt Auburn Cemetery, near Cambridge, MA, a very beautiful place). And I want to have good rendition of both the stone monuments / graves and the snow on and around which I believe involves very different treatment. Also I would like to do b/w. Not sure about the light condition but I will surely get there on the end or beginning of a sunny day where light is low and oblique. That might provide interesting light I believe but with harsh contrasts. Maybe I should try with a more cloudy weather as well.

But of course if you have any tip for snow not necessarily for this specific idea it would help a lot as well. Among the questions I have are:
- How do the light metering ?
- Is blending of multiple exposure would be great help here ?
- Anything I should pay attention at editing ?
- ...

I did the enclosed shot for test purpose (with dull light condition though). I can say I like some of the mood out of it which it is close to what I want to get (especially the statue) but as you can see there are very few details out of the snow.


Thanks for your feedback.

Hello Jacques,
I like my shots of snow to be very detailed and have the colour cast that it picks up from the surroundings, usually the cloud and sky colours.
Most advise will be to meter for the scene then add exposure compensation by +1 or +2 stops to render the snow pure white, remember your light meter will meter for 18% grey.
Now, I don't like this method as the snow does indeed tend to come out as white, I personally dislike large areas of white in my images and much prefer the subtle colour cast and all the details such as the slight contours, indentations etc in the snow surface.

I use a D300 and this is roughly my method.

Manually meter in spot metering mode the foreground snow, manually adjust the exposure so the meter reads zero. I may add or reduce exposure by 1/3rd stop depending on it's surroundings. Check histogram for any highlights that are clipped, I tend to err on the underexposed side but again the usual practice for any type of shot is to "expose to the right" of the histogram as this allows the sensor to gather most details. I'm not paticularly keen on this method as I find it very difficult to achieve without blowing highlights.

Once in processing I will select areas of snow and very gently increase the highlights to make the sparkly bits pop, again this is against usual practice because if you had exposed to the right you would be increasing the shadows and midtones and leaving the highlights alone.

It's all subjective and there are different ways to do things depending on what you are comfortable with, I tend to treat snow as any other foreground as far as metering goes.

An important criteria for the colour of snow though is the White Balance setting, the cast or tone of the snow can change dramatically from one setting to the next. I generally find snow has the tone of the sky, if the sky is deep blue then to me the snow looks like it has a blue cast, I don't try and correct this as I think it looks far more realistic however, I may change the overall WB of the shot to change a blueish scene into a warmer reddish scene fo aesthetic reasons but i always try and make the snow match the overall tones if you see my meaning.

Hope this helps a bit,
JP

A few images of detailed snow, won't be everyones taste but its the way I like to represent it.

I like the middle photo best as it appears most natural... the other two look more like they have been post processed to achieve a painterly look which in my opinion is colorful but not really appealing. But then I wasnt there so I am just going by what I feel.
Your notes notes on photos in the snow however were very helpful.

Thats fine Ian, they are only examples of how I like snow to look in my images, I'm glad you think they look painterly as well as I haven't tried for that effect and the only thing done to them is a few levels tweaks.

Thanks a lot John. Much appreciated.

Though I am interested in b/w what you say about color cast is very very interesting. And I can see it very clearly in the 3 pics you provide. I find it striking BTW and helped me to have a deeper look at them. Thanks for that

Jacques, I have found that it is much easier to photograph snow in B+W, for one thing you negate the colour casts that can be subjectively appealing or not!!

I think it is easier to have a wider range of tones in mono snow as well from almost pure white to shades of grey. I've been out this last few days in deep snow and took time just to observe it, from a distance it can look white but up close there can be a wide range of subtle contrasts in it's surface formed by shadows in footprints, sunlit bits and bits in shade etc. All this can be represented in mono well I think but accurate spot metering will provide the best exposure results whether you choose to over expose or not.

JP

for snow I typically use +2/3 or +1 exposure compensation.

I've been reviewing and tinkering with the way I expose for predominently snow scenes, been out all day in it and nearly snowblind now, I'll have to have a pint by touch and smell tonight. I've been experimenting a lot both with overexposing +2/3, +1 etc but in the end plumbed for the zero reading the meter gave me in spot mode. Most of the histograms are to the right and I'm going to process by adjusting the shadows and midtones and see how they come out. One thing I did notice was that +1 EV rendered the images blown out in the highlights but I have kept a few of these as well as test and comparison shots.

Right, I'm off to the pub to ease the pain in my eyes, will keep you posted of my results.

JP

Here are some modest outcome of mine:



Those two corresponds to very different light angles of course. But both were shot same day, a sunny day indeed, lightly cloudy and sun high (but it never rises really high at this season) and light filtered by many high trees (it was a wonderful light by the way)
What I did for exposure is matrix (1st one) and spot metering on the grave (2nd one) both with no EV correction. I figured out that having rock or stone (stone grave here) that are well exposed for spot metering does give good results on the snow around if you want to get details from it and not washed out area.

I am rather happy with snow rendition here - at least with my monitor. But any feedback for that matter is appreciated.

The first one is a tricky exposure as you have a wide range between the sunlit snow and dark shadowed stones. I think the tones are good in the snow and pushed far enough in highlights but the shadows in the stones a little too dark for me.

The second one looks very realistic and natural, I think you have got the snow characteristics just right but I think an easier scene to expose for as it is more or less front lit I think.

For the first one I decided to burn on top (and crop a bit of it as well) to have more focus on the two crosses. I realize it is a fault due to trying to achieve something more moody at the expense of descriptive. But actually the dark shadowed stones and background can be better rendered if not my crappy PP... :) .. good lesson.

Yeah, well, Jonusb, I think 1X is about a differnt type of photography...? :|

lol... love the monty pythonesque turnaround this thread just made :-D

I have had pretty good results by just bracketing the shot +/- 1EV and using layer mattes in PS:



Both of these were Matrix metering and bracketed, then the foreground and sky were blended in PS w/ layer masks.

The light is very great. Beautiful pictures!