Unhappy with your snow photos?
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Living and working in the Philadelphia area, snow is inevitable at some point during the winter. We may not get knocked flat like New England, but we certainly get pretty landscapes after the newly fallen snow. And if you’re like me, getting snow pictures is most enjoyable when you can get back inside almost immediately to warm your fingers and toes.
We just got 6-12 inches in this region and I’m sure there are plenty of people taking their cameras outside and snapping away. But if your pictures are lacking detail, you’re probably not real thrilled with them. Are your images looking like the one below?
Overexposed snow picture
Yes, you can tell it’s a picture of snow and there’s even some detail in the different lumps and bumps of snow. Don’t be satisfied with this picture! If your photos are looking like the one above, it’s time to adjust your exposure. Look for a button with a “+/-” on it or go into your main shooting menu and look for something similar. This is your exposure compensation control and it is your friend.
What you’ll see when you push the button or otherwise activate the control through the menu will look like a time line with a zero (0) in the center. The zero indicates your camera’s exposure. Going to the left of the zero will be negative numbers, effectively decreasing the exposure (allowing less light into the camera). If your snow pictures look like the one above, this is exactly what you want.
Going to the right of the zero will increase the exposure (allowing more light into the camera). If you have taken pictures that look too dark, you’ll want to be in this positive range.
In general, with digital photography, setting your exposure compensation to be slightly negative (such as -1/3 or -2/3) makes better photos. Why? Because as soon as an area gets completely white, no amount of Photoshop post production will bring out any detail in the image. If you decrease the exposure, you prevent those areas from getting “blown out.” This is especially important if you find yourself shooting a lot of light-colored subjects like snow, egrets, polar bears, etc.
Here’s what that same shot could look like by using the exposure compensation button. This image is a full 2-1/3 stops darker than the first one.
Snow photo after using exposure compensation
On the screen, I admit that this second photo looks a little dark to me. The good news is, I can print it lighter without losing the detail. Whereas I can’t do the same with the first image.
Now get back out there and shoot some snow!