Snow Scenes Not What You Expected? Over-Expose Away The Gray.

The two most difficult aspects of photography from a teaching point-of-view, are COMPOSITION and EXPOSURE .

If you haven't seen the article preceding this, you may find it helpful in dealing with the challenges of getting "correctly" exposed photos of snow scenes , which, like other high contrast scenes, can be frustrating.

http://thenewstalkers.com/forum/topics/birds-in-snow-a-potentially-...

When referencing "exposure" in photography, I often put the word "correct," in quotation marks; I do this because a "correctly-exposed" image can be a matter of subjectivity ... that is, often, several variations in exposure of a given scene may appear to be "correct," neither over-exposed (too bright), nor, under-exposes (too dark).

When I look through my viewfinder and think I see a particularly good composition, to make sure I'll get at least one "correctly exposed" shot, I'll do some or all of the following:

1) Shoot the same composition THREE TIMES ... once using my camera's MATRIX METERING, once using the CENTER WEIGHTED, and one more using SPOT METERING. If I'm lucky, all three shots will be "correct" (for me that means "publishable quality"), albeit each having a different feel or look.

I realize that not everyone may be familiar with the light-metering settings on his/her particular camera, so

2) Same as #1) but for each of the three shots, use my camera's EXPOSURE COMPENSATION feature to add variations . Yes ... I can be an obsessive pain-in-the-ass ... but I get some pretty interesting photos as a result.

HAS ANYONE NOTICED THAT SNOW SCENES OFTEN TURN OUT WITH THE SNOW BEING GRAY AND DULL RATHER THAN WHITE AND CRISP? The reason has to do with the way CAMERA LIGHT METERING is calibrated.

After years of experimentation and thousands of exposures, camera technology decided upon a so-called "neutral" tone around which to calibrate light metering. Long-story-short, that "neutral" tone is known as

"18% GRAY"

Huh? Translation.

Assume PURE WHITE = Zero percent black -- 0%

Assume SOLID BLACK = One Hundred percent black -- 100%

Cameras, film or digital, WILL ADJUST SCENES SO THAT, IF/WHEN OVERLY BRIGHT (like scenes with lots of snow or other bright areas), those area will be somewhere near the 18% GRAY. That's good if the actual subject matter isn't supposed to be closer to bright white -- as with snow. That's bad if it IS as with snow!

All right, if you get the concept, you are ready to see an immediate difference probably with your very next snow picture.

Set up your snow scene as you always do, but

Before you snap the shutter, find the EXPOSURE COMPENSATION FEATURE (assuming your camera has one).

The EXPOSURE COMPENSATION SETTINGS ARE USUALLY IN INCREMENTS OF 1/3 (don't worry about "1/3 of what" -- for now it's not necessary to know)

Shoot the scene at least 3 times -- YOU WILL BE OVEREXPOSING AT LEAST TWO OF THE THREE SHOTS -- OVEREXPOSING -- INTENTIONALLY MAKING THE SNOW BRIGHTER -- moving it away from the 18% Gray towards white.

Compare the shots noting which came where in the sequence 1/3 over, 2/3 over 3/3 or ONE FULL "STOP" OVER. (Stop = f-stop we'll talk about that another time).

There are other ways to approach exposure, but these are the ways I prefer. But experiment ... really ... PLAY, HAVE FUN ... GO FOR IT!

Then share your stuff; if you'd like some critiquing and fine tuning, my pleasure -- we're all friends here (I don't knock anyone's head off, promise).

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