Snow.
It’s fluffy, fun, and everybody’s favorite projectile object.
However, if you’ve ever tried photographing snowy scenes, you know that it can sometimes be a challenge. In this article, I want to share a few things I try to keep in mind when I’m taking pictures in a winter wonderland.
It’s all about that metering
I’ll cut right to the chase- getting the best shot in a snowy scene comes down to nailing the exposure.
If you’re relying on the camera to decide the settings you may notice that it tends to underexpose your photo slightly ending up a bit darker than what it should be. This is because the meter in your camera is looking for an average contrast or “middle gray”, and snowy scenes are generally brighter than middle gray.
Your camera, trying to be helpful, thinks there’s too much brightness in your photo (snow) so it will reduce the overall exposure of your image trying to find that middle gray.
What exactly is middle gray?
Middle gray (or 18% gray) isn’t actually the color gray—it’s just a specific tone that’s halfway between pure black and pure white in terms of brightness. If you take all the different tones in a typical scene and average them out, they usually land somewhere around this middle gray.
When your camera meters a scene, it doesn’t know what it’s looking at—it just measures the light and tries to expose everything as if it were that middle gray tone. If you’re shooting a snowy landscape, your meter sees a ton of bright white and assumes, “Whoa, this must be too bright!” So, it suggests a darker exposure, making your snow look gray and dull.
To fix this, you have to overexpose by +1 or +2 stops to make the snow look properly white.
Backlight Compensation
If you’re shooting with an automatic or aperture priority camera there are a few ways you can game the system.
One trick I like to use if I’m shooting my Nikon EM in the snow is to use the ‘backlight compensation’ button. Some cameras have a button or dial that adds two stops of light to your image when you’re shooting backlit subjects (i.e. portraits backlit by the sun). Doing this increases the exposure by two stops to brighten up the image.
Another way to trick an aperture priority camera into the correct exposure is to just increase the iso. An example would be if you were shooting a roll of Tri-X 400, don’t set the iso dial to the box speed of 400, instead set the iso to 100, and develop normally.
Doing this allows more light to hit the film because it gives your images more light (slightly longer exposure time) resulting in an overall brighter image.
Freezing the frame
Pun intended. Ha.
But jokes aside, if you’re trying to photograph snow flakes, and you want to capture them mid-air, set your shutter speed to 250/sec or faster. Slower shutter speeds will allow some motion and blur as the snow is falling which can also look great, giving your image more of a dreamy quality.
Why So Blue?
If you’re shooting snowy scenes on color film it can appear to have a blue color cast. This is because snow is very reflective, and captures reflections from the sky that introduce a blue cast that is especially noticeable in the shadows.
I personally like the blue cast, because it can give a “cooler” feeling to an image, but if it’s not your thing, there are ways to counteract it.
Since we don’t have auto white balance like a digital camera we need to correct any ‘cool’ color casts using a warming filter (like the 81A) or shoot with film stocks that have a naturally warmer look (like Portra 400).
Example Images – Kodak Tri-X 400
Reducing glare
Another thing that can sometimes be helpful when shooting film in the snow is a polarizer. This isn’t a ‘use it every time’ kind of thing, but you may find that snow can get a glare from the sun reflecting off the water. A polarizer will help reduce this glare, increasing contrast and defining more details.
Something to keep in mind if you do use a polarizing filter is that it can reduce your exposure by an additional 1-2 stops, so make sure to adjust accordingly.
Been There, Done That
The more you shoot in the snow the easier it gets to ‘guesstimate’ the exposure and how/when to adjust your settings. With some practice, judging how many stops you need for a scene becomes second nature.
I hope these couple of tips were helpful. It’s the few things that I try to keep in mind whenever I’m out shooting film in the snow.