Winter pictures

brennnanmckeigue

Hello, I was looking to take some winter pictures with lots of snow, but I can't seem seem to get the lighting right. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I am using a Nikon D3300 with a 35mm lens with f/1.8. Thanks.

bruto

As a general rule, you will want to overexpose some in snow. How much will depend somewhat on what you're aiming at, what the light is, what else is in the scene, and so forth. The camera's meter, though pretty smart often, will usually attempt to render the large expanse of white as gray, and the camera's sensor will usually see more blue in it than your eye does.

You may have to experiment a little with bracketing (shooting with both plus and minus compensation on the same scene) to find the best spot for what you're doing, but in general, in snow discrete objects will tend to be silhouetted, and the snow blue-gray, unless you increase exposure a fair amount. For starters, try something between +1 and +2.

If you're doing scenery, the 35mm should be grand, but remember not to open it up too much. Depth of field will be shallow at 1.8. For outdoor shots where you want some detail in the background, try around f/8.

Nikon's auto white balance, while overall quite good, can be a bit bluish in direct light, which adds to the natural blueness of snow. If you shoot in Raw, you can adjust it later in View NX2 or other raw reading programs. Otherwise, try changing to a different setting. Cloudy will give you a warmer look.