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Photography - How to properly Expose a Snow Scene
By Keith Winter of Fotos Winter
I have often been asked why, when taking photographs of snow scenes, the snow is reproduced as a blue/gray colour instead of the pure white that they saw when they took the photograph. Well, the answer is all to do with how the camera's light meter works. The camera's light meter is a very complicated device that is designed to measure and record an evenly exposed, (average toned), photograph and will usually render pure whites as a neutral gray so as to avoid large patches of pure white paper in your photos. Most of the time your camera's meter will do an excellent job of producing a photo with acceptable tones and colour, but when shooting bright white or very dark objects, the meter gets confused and tries to compensate for the extremes in tone. If the scene is predominantly made up of black or dark colours, the meter will set an overexposure to compensate for the darkness. If the scene is predominantly white, as in a snow scene, the meter will compensate for the light colours and tend to underexpose the photograph, thus rendering the white snow as a neutral gray colour. This can often be corrected in an image processing program, such as Photoshop, but at the expense of some loss of detail. By far the best way is to get the exposure correct in the camera and not rely on your photo-editing software. This actually, is not as difficult as you may think. If you have a a camera that allows you to set the exposure manually, simply take a meter reading off the sky immediately above or to the side of the main subject. Enter those settings in your camera, re-compose and shoot the scene. If your camera is set to "auto exposure", point your camera at the sky above or to the side of the main subject and lock the exposure, (this is usually done by holding the shutter release button halfway down,) keep the exposure locked, re-compose your picture and shoot. You should now have a natural looking snow scene. |
Los Santos de la Humosa - Madrid - Spain
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Great first intel Keith! Glad you decided to write one.  Rosemary
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Hi Rosemary, Yes. I finally found the time to write something. Thanks for your comment and encouragement. Kind Regards,
Keith
Congratulations on your first intel Keith! I gave it 5 stars because I thought it was excellent information, and you explained it so well. I guess this information would apply when taking a photo on a beach where the sun is glaring down making everything so bright?
 | | Barb Dec 29, 2010 00:06 | |
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Hi Barb, Thank you for your comment. Yes. You can use the same technique when taking photos on the beach. Take your meter reading just above the horizon and to the side of the sun, if there is any. It is not 100% foolproof but it works most of the time. Kind Regards,
Keith
Thank you for sharing this valuable information, Keith.
Congratulations on writing your first intel and that's a great image of Madrid.
Keep up the good work.
Best wishes for a Happy New Year.
Frederick
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Hi Frederick, Thanks for reading my Intel. It´s been a long time coming. Lets hope I can keep it up. By the way, I love your latest snowman, and congratulations to you and your wife on your aniversary. Kind Regards,
Keith
How appropriate that your first intel should be on "Winter" scenes. I was wondering how long it took for you to think about that.:) My hubby is a well-known photographer, who is never without a camera within reach, he uses a light meter when taking most of his photos. I know that he would agree with your intel. I have used many of his photos in my Squidoo lenses. I REALLY believe that your intel deserves 5 stars!
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