It’s possible to get great photos in any season of the year. Every season has its own problems to overcome as well. Following are some winter photography tips that you need to keep in mind so that your winter photos turn out well
Be careful with your light meter. The first of the winter photography tips has to do with correct exposure. This is a challenging task because snow can overpower your light meter with the light coming off all that whiteness. If you depend on your light meter alone, photos may turn out underexposed and those wonderful winter snow-scapes become gray.
Knowing this, you can compensate by adding some overexposure. Much of the time, this overexposure only has to be +1 stop. If you are taking photos in bright, sunlit snow conditions, you may want to go to a +2 stop. Anything over this can cause your photos to be blown out and lacking in detail.
Another of the winter photography tips has to do with Filters. In short, use filters in the winter. The polarizing filter is one that can really be used to improve your winter photos. This filter adds definition to clouds, does away with glare, darkens blue skies, and makes colors more saturated. Low sun angles can lead to over-polarization making the sky appear unnatural. The answer to this? Take several frames with different polarization to see which gives you the effect you want.
Other winter photography tips regarding filters: Graduated neutral-density filters can be used to deal with variations in exposure when your scenes have different amounts of light in different aspects. A three-stop neutral-density filter appears to be a good all-around filter for winter scenes.
Another of the winter photography tips with filters: Use a warming filter like the 81C. Although not used a lot in this digital age, this filter continues to help neutralize what can appear to be a bluish cast to snow on days that are sunny or in the shade.
Focus problems. Yet another of these winter photography tips deals with focus problems. When you have low contrast like on foggy days, overcast days, or when it’s actively snowing, autofocus might not be able to work well. In these conditions the lens has difficulty finding something with enough contrast to focus.
In addition, your lens might try to focus on the falling snow, leaving everything else out of focus. Switch to manual focus. Hold the shutter button down halfway to allow good focus in your viewfinder.
Next month, we’ll cover some more winter photography tips.
If you want someone else to deal with getting great winter photos, you want the best photographers available to take your photos. Pixel Perfect Photography in Amherst, NH, is the perfect place to capture the magic of your moments. Karen and Kiera are waiting to do their best for you. Call 603-672-8780 to schedule a time to get together and plan how they will meet your needs.
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