Photography tips

This page is for photography tips relating to photographing outdoor self propelled activities and landscapes. Please do not include tips on motorsports photography or studio portraiture or other such things

Exposing for snow

Exposure compensation

Snow is white. The trouble is, automatic camera meters try to make everything look grey, so if you let the camera have it's way you end up with gray snow, which doesn't look very nice. Also, skiers in shots with gray snow tend to show up as underexposed black blobs. The solution here usually involves applying some exposure compentation, to make the camera take a longer exposure than it thinks it needs. Usually between +0.5 and +1.0 stops is about right for a scene with some snow, some sky and some rocks, although how much is needed varies with the scene and angle of the sun. Be careful not to apply too much exposure comensation or you can blow out the hilights in the snow.

Other metering techniques

If you have a camera with manual controls there are number of other methods things you can do. One that works well for snowy scenes and slide film is to spot meter a highlight off the snow and then apply about +2.5EV of exposure compensation to that reading. This will place the snow near the top of your dynamic range and everything else will just end up where it ends up. Underexposed shadows are usually better than blown higlights, so this stategy tends to work well. This technique will no doubt work for digital cameras as well, but the amount of compensation needed

If you try to meter off a gray card, (or a person or the palm of your hand) the skier in your photo will look just right but usually the snow end up being blown out because it's so bright. If metering like this it's usually best to stop down 1 stop or so to bring the hilights in at the expense of the shadows.

Time of Day

Snowy scene at mid day tend to have more constrast than most cameras and film can handle. This leaves the photographer with the choice between blown hilights or underexposed shadows, neither of which are good. This is especially true in the summer when the sun in high in the sky.

Early and Late in the day when the sun is lower in the sky is a better time to shoot as the overall scene contrast tends to be much less

White Balance

Snow is supposed to be white, but the sky makes it look blue in the shape (especially on those north facing power runs we all like to ski). Fortunately snow is the perfect thing to take a white balance setting from. Without a digital camera, a very strong warming filter is needed or you need to go take pictures somewhere in the sun.

Skiing Photography

Skiers move pretty fast (at least on the way down), so you'll have to use a fast shutter speed to stop the action. 1/250 should be considered the minimum and 1/500 is a lot more safe. Good focal lengths to consider for shooting skiing are between 80mm and 200mm (in 35mm terms, so make the appropriate adjustments for your digital camera)

Climbing Photography

Don't bother with butt shots taken from the ground. To get a good climbing shot, the photographer should be level with the climber or higher. The main reason for this is so you can get the climber's face in the shot, which is very important. Shooting on rappel is one option for getting this position, be the easiest way is to go to the top of the crag, clip in to a solid anchor and lean out over the edge of the climb.