Taking Pics in the snow.

With all the snow about at the moment, I see many photos that could be stunning except for one thing; exposure.

Most people leave their camera on auto-exposure or program mode and let the camera do the work. However, snow causes some particular challenges and, if you don’t take control of the exposure, your photo’s will come out with a blue-grey cast that you so often see.

Why is this?
A cameras built-in meter calculates the exposure assuming the picture being taken has a normal contrast range. This works great when the scene has a wide tonal range with everything from black to white being present in a normally distributed way. The problem with snow scenes is that the scene tone is strongly biased towards white. This causes the camera to underexpose the scene which results in the photograph having a blue-grey cast.

What’s the cure?
The cure is quite simple; all you need do is over expose the scene between 1 and 2 stops, depending on the amount of snow in the scene and the lighting conditions. Alternatively, if your camera has a snow scene mode, select this, it will make the adjustment for you.

Remember to take lots of pictures. As it’s digital, it’s free. Check the on-camera display and if a shot didn’t work out, change the settings and re-take it.