How to take a good photo of the snow scene?

In order to take photos successfully in the snow, it is necessary to apply correct exposure compensation. When it is necessary to calculate the exposure, try to read all the shadows and colors in the scene and integrate them into gray. If all the values of all shadows and colors are added and printed, the average gray level will be obtained.

If you are a photographer who is more creative than most people and tends to shoot unusual things, you need to use a good metering mode to improve the image quality, but it is very difficult to take pictures in the snow because of the strong contrast (especially on sunny days).

Nothing is more difficult than overexposure to bright colors. It is best not to see any details in the shadow, but don't overexpose.

But shooting snow scenes is an exception. We think snow is white. If possible, we want to see some details in the snow, but we chose the people and objects we shot, so we led ourselves to the big white area in the image.

First, the exposure compensation standard

Almost all cameras have exposure compensation scales specially designed for these shooting conditions. When shooting a moving snow scene, all we have to do is to reduce the scale to+1, or even to +2 on a sunny day. The image will be overexposed with normal standards, but it is necessary in this case.

Second, use the RAW format.

If the camera has the function of creating RAW format, RAW can provide you with more exposure freedom than ordinary jpeg. Although it is best to apply the correct exposure to the camera immediately, if there is a problem in shooting, the RAW file will be helpful for post-processing.

Thirdly, the flexible use of histogram.

Now even a simple digital SLR camera has a screen histogram view, which is a more accurate way to check whether the exposure is correct (after shooting), especially in bright environment (nothing can be seen on the screen). Reasonable use of histogram can help photos to be better exposed.

Third, white balance shooting

Another aspect that may not be easy for a camera in automatic mode is to obtain white balance from the color of snow. If you don't plan to edit photos in the future and want to make all the correct settings in the camera immediately, it is recommended to set the white balance to flash mode instead of automatic mode, which usually produces warmer tones to compensate for the slight blue light emitted by the flash, or you can use the skylight filter to preheat the scene.

At Adobe Camera

Fine-tune the white balance in RAW. Don't try to completely eliminate the blue color of snow, it does have blue color. If you try to get rid of blue completely, you will eventually get yellow snow. Make sure that the highlights (highlights with details preserved) are as neutral as possible and the shadows are slightly blue.

Fourthly, the composition of snow scene.

The snowy scenery looks very soft, and there are often too many "blank spaces" in the photos. Look around and look for something attractive-trees, rocks or anything that contrasts sharply with the photos.

Like any landscape photography, we need to find something interesting in the foreground to make it "lifelike", and at the same time place elements, horizons and so on according to the possible three-point method. Never put the horizon in the middle of the picture accurately and move it up and down, so that the image is divided by 1/3-2/3, but it cannot be divided into two equal halves.