Travel and Shoot the Snow World

Travel and Shoot the Snow World

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Travel and Shoot the Snow World

Hong Kong doesn’t snow in December but many people would travel to enjoy a white, snowy Christmas during holidays. How can we take in all these stunning snowy scenery with our cameras and turn them into one-of-a-kind photos? Check out this article on snow photography tips and ways to protect your equipment and get prepared for your upcoming photo trip!

Shutter Speed to Determine the Shape of Snow

To capture photos of snow falling from the sky, use of different shutter speeds will give the photos a different kind of mood. To freeze the falling snowflakes, use a fast shutter speed such as 1/100s or above. The resulting photo will look romantic with snowflakes appeared as tiny white dots in the photo. Conversely, a slow shutter speed such as 1/60s or below will turn the snowflakes into trace of lines, which can be used to depict a windy, snowy scene and make the photo look more dynamic.
Title:《賞 • 雪》 Club Canon Member:Henry Tang
EOS 5D Mark II • EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM • 1/320s • f/4.5 • ISO 400
The choice of background is a key element. As snow is white in color, a dark background is preferred in order to make the snow more stand out. In situation where the photo elements are a little bit messy, we can set the Picture Style to “Monochrome” to outstand the white falling snow using a black-and-white approach.
This beautiful snowy photo makes use of the black-and-white contrast and a couple under umbrellas as the foreground element

Title:《沿途有你》 Club Canon Member:PS
EOS 5D Mark II • EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM • 1/250s • f/2.8 • ISO 800

Increase the Exposure Compensation

Evaluative Metering is commonly used in normal landscape shooting and it can help achieve accurate exposure. However, when taking photos of snowy scene where a large area of white snow ground in the frame will cause strong reflection, interfering the metering system and leading to under-exposed shot with dim snow ground and subject, increasing the exposure compensation by 1 or 2 stops (depending on the proportion of the snow ground in the frame) is necessary.
Using merely Evaluative Metering may result in under-exposed snowy photo with a dim snow ground. This photo, however, achieves a very accurate exposure, depicting a white snow world with the gentle sunset light

Title:《夕陽西下》 Club Canon Member:Tin
EOS 6D • EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM • 1/160s • f/7.1 • ISO 100
To ensure accurate exposure, checking merely on the image shown in the camera’s monitor is not enough. We should also press the “Info” button on the camera body and take a look at the image’s Histogram. In general, the Histogram of an evenly exposed image will have a bell-shaped distribution with pixels gathering evenly in the middle area (click here to learn more on how to read a Histogram). Besides, we can also turn on the “Highlight Warnings” from the camera’s menu. Those blinking white area on the image means an over-exposure, and you may need to lower the exposure compensation a bit. Shooting in RAW format is also suggested. This can help retain more image details on both the highlight and shadow areas to facilitate exposure adjustment during post-editing.

Adjust the White Balance

Another common problem in snow photography is the inaccuracy of using auto white balance. The snow ground may appear bluish especially when shooting on a cloudy day or into the light source. To reveal the snow ground in white color, we can either set the white balance to “Cloudy”, or adjust it manually to around 6000K. Of course you should always adjust the white balance according to your preference. You can leave it to auto and do no adjustment if it’s your intention to add a bluish tint to the photo to make it more wintery.
The snow ground will go bluish easily when shooting into the sun. However, this can be used to give a cool feeling to the photo and convey the fierce winter weather

Title:《白川點燈》 Club Canon Member:Raymond Chan
EOS 5D Mark III • EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM • 20s • f/11 • ISO 100

Use of Wide-Angle and Telephoto Lenses

What type of lens should we use in snow photography? There is no absolute answer. For normal landscape photography, wide-angle to normal range are most commonly used. Sometimes we can also try fish-eye lens to accentuate the magnificence of a snowy forest with its strong sense of perspective and space. Telephoto lenses can also be used in taking feature shots of icy branches, or making a snowy forest look denser with its perspective compression effect.
The photographer shot upwards with a fish-eye lens to convey a feeling of being embraced in the forest, creating this special shot with one-of-a-kind composition

Title:《藍天白樹》 Club Canon Member:hkyau
EOS 5D Mark II • EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye • 1/400s • f/13 • ISO 400
It’s not always necessary to take a wide shot of the whole forest. This shot featuring the icy branches with a piece of maple leaf left on the tree is stunning

Title:《丹楓一片傲寒冬》 Club Canon Member:傅鳴
EOS 5D Mark III • EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM • 1/500s • f/8 • ISO 100

Ways to Protect Your Equipment in Low Temperature

Photographic equipment with dust-proof, water-proof and cold-resistant feature is highly preferred when it comes to snow photography. The change in temperature can reach several ten degrees between the indoor and outdoor environment in winter, so there is a high chance of lens fogging when going from somewhere with lower temperature to higher temperature. Therefore, before we go inside a warm indoor area, seal the equipment in a zip-lock bag or plastic bag. This can help the equipment pick up on the temperature gradually and lower the chance of fogging.

When shooting in the falling snow, some snowflakes may adhere to your camera. Under this situation and when it’s necessary to change the lens, make sure the camera faces down to avoid snowflakes falling into the camera body. Before you go back to an indoor area, wipe off the snowflakes attached on the body and lens to prevent the snow from melting into water droplets in warm temperature and causing malfunction. In addition, when the temperature drops to below 0 degree Celsius, the life of lithium battery will go down. Therefore, keep your other batteries close to your body such as inside the pockets to keep them warm. If you are planning to take lots of photos, remember to bring a couple of spare batteries as well.
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