How To Get Creamy Winter Whites
Photographing in the Snow – Why is there blue snow in my images?
Image 1: Image before adjustments. Blue tinted snow and bluish tone.
Image 2: Adjusted the image by reducing the cyan and blue hues in PhotoShop.
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, Shutter speed: 1/640 sec, Aperture: 7.1, Exposure mode: Av + 1/3 Flash: Off Metering mode: Evaluative. Drive mode: Low-speed continuous shooting ISO: 640 Polar Bear Mother and Cubs Photo Tour
Photographing nature in the great outdoors can offer many challenges and difficult lighting situations. Many of today’s digital cameras are very good at reading these lighting situations and exposing for them properly, even in automatic. But introduce high contrast scenes, like snow on a bright sunny day, and most of todays cameras will have difficulty dealing with this lighting on their own. This is a time when we have to take control of our camera and use some know how to make sure we get good exposures.
Photographing in the snow whether it be a darker subject on bright snow or a light or white subject on bright snow requires using correct exposure compensation and white balance settings. Even though this article is not directed at learning how to use exposure compensation, I will say that, contrary to common intuition, shooting in snow will almost always require us to add exposure compensation or, purposely overexpose our image, to avoid the camera making the snow a neutral grey and thereby darkening the main subject at the same time. So remember, bright snow, overexpose. Crazy isn’t it?
So assuming that we understand that we need to add exposure compensation in the snow, (how much will depend on how bright the scene is and the degree of contrast within it), let’s look at another factor that will add to how our snow looks in the finished image. This factor is the white balance setting. Again, a lot of today’s digital cameras are well equipped to handle most scenes in auto white balance setting and render whites fairly true to the real scene. Not so much in sun and snow. Most cameras will not know how to see snow correctly in shady areas or in different daytime ambient light situations. This is when you look at your image and some or all of the snow appears to have a blue cast.
Image 3: Polar-Bear Mum Churchill Natures Photo Adventures David Hemmings.jpg Camera Model: Canon EOS 7D. Shutter speed: 1/2500 sec. Aperture: 9. Exposure mode: Manual. Flash: Off. Metering mode: Center-weighted average. ISO: 400 Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x Focal length: 700mm
Notice the nicer light and warmth of the photo above. This photo was taken on a different day then the one above. Light makes a big difference in the outcome.
I have found that setting the white balance to “shade” works quite well. This will tell your camera that the light sources in the scene are coming indirectly and not straight from the sun. This light is measured on the Kelvin scale at around 7200 while normal daylight is at around 5000. So, in essence, what the shade setting does is tell the camera to “warm up” the scene and it will help to get a truer white. This does not guarantee that there will not be any blue cast in the snow but if there is, it is easy to get rid of in PhotoShop.
As you probably know, shooting in RAW format allows you to make adjustments to the white balance setting in your raw converter program, so even if you are not happy with what has been done in camera it is simple to adjust the white balance in raw conversion, gotta love digital! Even after adjusting the white balance in your raw converter there can still be a blue cast. You can simple go to the adjustments – saturation – blue – in Photoshop and use the slider to decrease the amount of blue to taste or eliminate it all together. Questions? Ask David@NaturesPhotoAdventures.com Hands-on learning with David Hemmings Snowy Owls Photo Tour, Polar Bears Photo Tour and Winter Wolves Tour
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