Photographing snow...

[mikelangelo]

well... here I am in Chicago and we've just had our first sizeable snow. I would say 5-8 inches depending on where you stand.

http://www.mikelangelo.com/blog/index.php?showimage=323

Which leads to my next question... how do you photograph snow.

It's really hard to expose it correctly (ESPECIALLY in bright Sunlight... like I was trying to do today) as the snow will often be blown out.

My question becomes... do you have any advice? I'm doing lots of tests and hope to post some more this weekend.

I'm using aperture priority mode with a touch of Exposure Compensation. Any suggestions?

[Joe[y]]

i think you did very well actually - play around with white balance a bit as well.

[raminia]

I think using a UV filter will help.

[mikelangelo]

I've got the standard haze/UV filter on all the time to protect my lens. Should I consider an ND or Polarizing filter? I shoot in RAW, if that helps.

thanks for the feedback.

[raminia]

I had this problem with my little fuji, I remember someone in a photography forum told me about using Polarizing filter for that but I'm not sure....

some pro tell me if I'm wrong.

EDIT:
My brother has one color filter for hist digital video camera. It's usefull on snow scene.

[Spudooli]

Last winter when I was in Wisconsin and trying to get decent shots of snow, I found it was easiest to just get the shot. It was too cold to stand around outside playing with camera settings for me, especially for someone that comes from New Zealand and complains about the cold in winter here when it's only in the low 40s F.

And then back inside in the warm dial in some +ev in Nikon Capture to get the snow white again. And play with white balance and levels to keep everything balanced.

[mikelangelo]

Yeah... there is DEFINITELY some merit in what you are saying Spudooli. I've been doing a smidge of that in Camera RAW in PS. (ok...maybe a bit more than a smidge...)