7 Tips for Taking Photographs in the Snow

When you are taking pictures in the snow, you are usually trying to keep yourself and the camera warm. You might be putting camera parts in your layers of jackets so they don't freeze up, and bringing cloths to dry off foggy lenses. A good way to avoid this is to use a zoom lens to give you a wide range while not getting condensation in your camera body or fog on your lens. A UV or clear filter, lens hood, and a polarizing lens are all useful tools to keep your picture taking experience in the snow a little easier.

1. Protect and Serve Your Camera

    Leaving the lens cap on while you're in the snow prevents snowflakes from going on your lens and melting. Blowing on your camera if it gets fogged should be avoided, and should be handled with a lens cloth, which you should bring much of. Also holding your breath while bringing the camera up to your face is helpful to prevent extra fog. If the snow is more on the liquid side, you should bring rain gear to keep most of it out.

2. Shoot in the Raw
    This one isn't that hard. Just shoot in raw format so that when you are adjusting the colours, exposure, etc, it will be easier.

3. No Gray on a Sunny Day
    Your camera is set to see the middle gray, so turning up the exposure can allow the snow to be pure white instead of muddy.

4. Use the Histogram
    Since you may be shooting in a lot of snow or a bright sun, it can be hard to see your screen and read the exposure properly. So looking at your camera's histogram can be useful for reading the exact exposure.

5. Keep Your Balance
    Snow most of the time reads a blue-ish tone, so figuring out the white balance can kind of be hard. If you are not going to try to balance out the white, using the flash setting can be useful for warming up the scene.

6. Stay Composed
    Using an object with a bright colour such as a scarf or a car in the vast white snow can bring out the pure white colour of the snow and its contrast of the bright object. But, if there isn't a bright colour in reach, you can always shoot in black and white for a "pristine" image. If there is snow falling, and you don't want it to show up in the image, you can set your camera on a tripod and slow down the shutter speed to get rid of the snowflakes. But if you would like the falling snow as the focal point of the picture, use a fast shutter speed.

7. Preserve Your Memories
    When you are done shooting, take the memory card out of your camera and put the camera in a zip lock bag or a waterproof dry tube bag before you go inside. This is so that you don't get condensation on or even in your camera, and instead outside of the zip lock bag.