Snow Winter Shooting Guide

As soon as we enter the winter, friends who love photography have new shooting themes. The northern partners picked up the guys and went straight to the dam or the northeast. The brothers in the south also took the equipment and began to go north. They were ready to spread the wild in the snow. The snow scene has a special meaning in the heart of photography enthusiasts. It not only expresses the beauty of nature, but also expresses emotions like the poet as a poet. So how can this theme of content not have a bit of photography? Here are some practical tips on how to take a good snow scene.

Develop a shooting plan in advance

Even in a city in the north, the warm winter has made the snow become an unforgettable scene. Many times, everything is just covered with a thin layer of snow, and it quickly melts, which means that we need to plan ahead.

To photograph the snow scene, you should first pay attention to the weather forecast every day. This is also the best way for us to know in advance about the snow.

After getting the snowfall notice, what should be considered for the performance of snow scenes in your favorite shooting locations? Then list several shooting locations that can be quickly reached, charge the battery in advance, and do all the preparations. Once the snow falls on schedule, immediately go to the shooting location. Especially for shooting haze, it is more important to prepare in advance. The haze is formed by the mist of the high temperature and cold condensation on the tree. Its shape attached to the branches is like an eucalyptus branch, and it is particularly attractive. It is a favorite snow scene for many photographers.

Fog and haze can only last for about 2 hours after sunrise. If it is late, the sunlight will cause the ground temperature to rise and the haze will melt. Shooting fog and fog should arrive at the shooting point in the dawn, the best shooting time is about 15 minutes to 9:30 before sunrise, in the right light to seize the opportunity to shoot as soon as possible. Once you miss this time, you can only see the dripping drops on the branches.

Correct exposure to avoid dark screen

Correct exposure is the key to the success or failure of snow photography. In large snow scenes, shooting with the camera's own metering system is generally underexposed. This is because the reflection of the snow is extremely strong and the brightness is extremely high. When shooting a large area of ​​snow, the camera's automatic metering system mistakenly believes that the environment is very bright, so the exposure is automatically reduced.

In this case, exposure compensation can be used to increase the exposure of 0.5 to 2 steps as appropriate (new snow, snow, ice snow reflective intensity is different). You can also aim the camera at a medium-tone object, such as a person's skin, locally at close range, and follow the measured data, using manual mode shooting.

It should be noted that shooting the snow scene does not require exposure compensation in all cases, but it is only necessary to set exposure compensation when snow occupies a large area in the picture.

Express the texture and tone of ice and snow

The best way to capture snow is to choose between the morning and the evening, that is, before 9 am or after 4 pm. This is mainly to take into account the intensity of sunlight and the angle of incidence.

Under the high-angle light, the reflectivity of the snow on the sun is very high, and the details of the ice and snow are easily submerged in the strong reflection, making the picture more white.

When the sun shines at a low angle, the reflection angle of the light on the snow is smaller and the picture will be softer. In addition, the choice of side light or side backlighting can best represent the light and shade levels of snow and ice and the transparent texture of snow particles, and the tone is also full of changes.

In addition to white snow, ice ridges in houses, streams, and waterfalls are also very much in focus. To show the ice crystal clear texture, side back light is the best choice, the transmission of sunlight can well highlight its texture and gloss, so that ice and snow look crystal clear, if with the dark background, the texture is more prominent. Accurate spot metering for highlight areas avoids overexposure.

Consciously choose scenery to set off

When photographing vast scenes such as snowy and snow-capped mountains, the snow itself is relatively small, and the surrounding scenery is also very simple. At this time, we must consciously choose trees, rivers, houses, and shepherds as the lining scenes to distinguish the snow scene from the surrounding grey-white scenes so that the picture changes, increase the depth of space, enhance the expressiveness of the snow scene, and enhance people’s influence on the snow scene. Feelings.

Embellishments with unusual details

In snowy weather, many of the familiar sceneries change the shape of the weekdays, the branches under snow pressure, the footprints in the snow, and the plum blossoms of Aoxue. These unusual scenes often provide a good representation of seasonal features.

Embellishing some colors in the snow and ice photos can not only make the colorful scenes jump out of the white, but also become a visually interesting spot with more outstanding effects.

Accurate metering and exposure

Accurate photometry and exposure are the primary factors for shooting snow scenes. We must first understand the characteristics of snow, because snow will produce a kind of mirror reflection after flat spreading on the ground. The characteristics of snow surface are: Brightness The contrast is small, the reflection rate is high, the level is lacking, and the color tone is single.

In this way, in the actual shooting, if you do not master some exposure and metering techniques, the scene captured by the camera will have some differences from the actual scene seen by the human eye.

The principle of modern digital camera metering is “white plus black minus”. When photographing snow scenes, two extremes tend to appear. First, if the picture ratio is relatively high, the photographer is afraid of overexposure, thereby reducing the exposure compensation, making the picture darker; second, if the picture light is relatively large, the photographer wrongly measures the darkness, which will make the picture The white snow was overexposed.

The most accurate metering method is to find the brightest large area in the picture, perform spot metering on it, and then set the exposure compensation to +1.0 to 2.0. This will ensure that the brightest areas of the picture will not be overexposed, and will appear pure white, and other parts of the picture will appear according to their own color and brightness.

In the extreme case of shooting a snow photo, in addition to the more meticulous method of metering, you can also use some photographic accessories to help with shooting. The most important accessory is the polarizer. The snow surface will have a strong intensity of polarized reflection, plus the polarizer can reduce the light ratio of the picture.

Try to use a large aperture to shoot snow in the fog

Photographing the early morning snow scene in winter, you often encounter hazy weather. The snowscape in the fog is even more representative, and it has a unique taste. At this time, the slow shooting method commonly used for small apertures in the snow scene may not be applicable.

Since photographs are taken in foggy days, the disappearance of distant contrasts often makes the works rich with a different kind of atmosphere. At the same time, some unexpected and vivid scenes will appear.

When shooting snow scenes in the fog, we can try to use larger apertures and use some objects as the foreground so as to highlight the depth perspective from near and far.

When shooting a snow scene in a fog, the exposure time becomes slower due to the smaller aperture and the need to increase the exposure compensation. At this time, the mist drifts over and creates an overly ambiguous effect.

If the fog is too heavy, it may cause the photograph taken to show a vague feeling, which not only wastes the shooting opportunity but also consumes a lot of electricity.

The shooting of snow scenes in the fog requires strict setting of the shooting parameters, plus one minute, and one minute less. However, once you make it, the effect is truly unparalleled.

Looking for specific colors

Monotonous pure white look for a long time is also easy to make people have visual and aesthetic fatigue, this time, using contrasting colors to support the snow scene, but more eye-catching.

You can observe the surrounding still life in the snow and see the color that jumps out. The contrast between the red and blue lines and the white color will appear more attractive in the snow scene.

Red is a contrasting color that highlights snow white. When we are shooting, we can look for this color to match, realize that the small scene can also be colorful, and shoot a lot of very detailed things.

But one thing to note a little bit is that when red appears in the picture, in order to take into account the appearance of the snow, it is very likely that the red color in the picture will appear overly-colored, and it may be red or purple. Therefore, we can use the RAW format when shooting in the early stage to make it easier for us to adjust the red hue and saturation later.

Blue is also a specific color that can add points to snow works. Adding a bright blue to the world of cleanliness can not only increase the coolness of the audience, but also allow the work to jump out of the plain hue trap. For example, in the above picture, imagine that we will remove the dark blue lake on the screen and replace it with a white color with the same color as the shore. Is this piece not as rich as you now see?

To break through the existing level, let us start from the color, in the absence of light and shadow, and the color of a single object shot, consider bringing in more different colors, add anger to the screen and some rich layers of change.

Extremely simplified composition

If your choice of location does not have any color that can be used as a finishing touch and there is no stunning natural landscape, then you can try shooting with a very simplified composition.

Simple composition, meticulous texture, dramatic atmosphere, people can not help but sink into it. For those who have used the snow scene, it may be a good thing to change the shooting style occasionally.

When it's snowing, it's pure white and sky. It's easy to shoot a concise picture. As long as wearing a light reducer with a high ND coefficient, the probability of shooting such a work is still very high.

Most of these snowscape-style photography style works were processed in a black and white manner in the later period, and the single-tone environment more easily highlights the subjects and themes in the works.

The shooting techniques of such works are also relatively simple. A solid tripod, a light reducer with a high ND coefficient can be completed, and novices can easily navigate.

To sum up, if the scenery of the shooting location is not as good as it should be, or if the shooting technology is still in short supply, it is also a good choice to take a few minimalist snow scenes in the winter.

Anti-fog lens coup

When shooting snow scenes, water vapor often condenses on the lens to form mist, and your shooting will be greatly affected. Although camera warmers are a good solution, the inadequacy of the oversized and warm time is also a constant problem for everyone.

Regarding how to solve the problem of water fog, everyone is also astounded by the Eight Immortals, and the photographer Mark Peter Thorpe's proposal makes the author shine. You may as well try it.

His plan is to put a warm baby on the lens, and he himself proved through experiments that the warm baby's performance is very good.

First, stick some tape on the lens. Use adhesive tape that is of good quality and does not leave marks on the lens as much as possible.

Next, attach the warm baby to the underside of the lens and begin heating. For a typical diameter and size of the lens, two warm babies are enough to cover most of the lens body area.

Finally, wrap the lens with a thick strip of Velcro to keep it warm as much as possible. Hey, the camera is ready to go. The heat preservation effect of a good quality warm baby can last for one day, enough to cope with long time shooting.