Tips for shooting snow with Canon 550D

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Tips and precautions for shooting ice and snow scenes

< p>It is best to take pictures of snow scenes on a sunny day after snow, or even better if you can catch the early morning light. In the sun, the use of side light and side backlight can best express the light and dark levels of the snow scene and the transparent texture of the snow particles. The tone is also rich in changes, and even distant views can create a profound atmosphere.

If you are photographing people in the snow, it is best to add auxiliary light to the face and wear a hood on the camera lens. If you use black and white film to shoot snow scenes, you should add a dark yellow, orange, or yellow-green filter to lower the tone of the sky, weaken the brightness of the snow, and soften the tone of the scene. If you use color film to shoot snow scenes, it is best to use a polarizer to absorb the polarized light reflected by the white snow, reduce the brightness, adjust the tone, make the white clouds in the blue sky stand out, and also increase the saturation of the color.

Correct metering and correct exposure are the keys to success in taking snow photos. In a large snow scene, if you use the camera's internal metering system to measure the light, and shoot the snow scene based on the displayed data, the snow scene will generally be underexposed. This is because the camera's internal light meter measures the light according to a certain procedure, and what it displays The data is the average light value of the highlights, midtones, and shadows in the comprehensive scene. This is feasible in most cases, but in snowy scenes, strong reflected light often causes the metering results to differ by 1-2 exposure stops. In this case, you can use exposure compensation and increase the exposure by 1-2 steps as appropriate. You can also aim the camera at the mid-tone object, take a local close-up measurement, and adjust the camera to "manual" based on the data measured at this time. "position to take photos. Photographers who have an incident light meter can measure the light beam shining on the subject in the snow and take pictures according to the resulting exposure data, which will be accurate.

On a snowy day, to get a picture of flying snowflakes, you should choose a dark background as a background; the shutter speed should not be too high, generally 1/15 to 1/60 seconds, so that the The flying snowflakes form lines, giving the impression of falling snowflakes. When photographing people in the snow, be careful not to let the snowflakes get too close to the lens, lest they block the person's face due to perspective.

When shooting snow scenes, you should also make full use of snowy or ice-covered branches, fences, buildings, etc. as foregrounds to improve the expressiveness of the snow scene, increase the spatial depth of the picture, and enhance people's feeling for the ice and snow.

In winter, snow scenes are the best photography subjects. People in the snow, buildings in the snow. . They all give people a vague and hazy feeling. But let’s take a look at winter photography tips first.

Snow scenes and tree hangings

There are three situations when taking pictures of snow scenes. One is a pure snow scene. Even if there are people, they are only embellishments and foils in the snow scene, and the characters occupy a very small position in the picture. The second situation is to use snow as the scene, with mainly characters. There is a certain distance between the snow and the characters, and the reflection of the snow cannot be directly reflected on the characters' faces or bodies. At this time, a strong contrast between the people and the snow is formed. The third situation is when a person is in the snow, and the reflected light from the snow can be reflected onto the person's body or face. Three situations require three treatments.

Simple snow scene

People who are trying to take pictures of snow for the first time often have a misunderstanding that they should take pictures wherever there is lots of snow, and where they should take pictures where the snow is white. The actual effect of shooting in this way may not be able to "shoot more" or "whiter" the snow. The reason is very simple. For example, if the square is covered with freshly fallen snow, what will it look like in the photo? Not only does it not have much effect, but it also loses the texture of snow. For more, there must be a sign of quantity and a comparison of quantity; for white, there must be contrast and foil with black or other colors. It has both volume and texture to achieve the snowy effect.

Quantity or texture are all set off, first with shadow, and then with less overcoming more. For example, the snow on a pine and cypress branch has a stronger texture than a large piece of snow in the square. Backlight, oblique side light or oblique side backlight has a better texture than smooth light. The backlighting of snow cannot produce very dark shadows like the backlighting of other scenery. Snow must not only be set off by shadows, but also set off by scenery, such as on the pine and cypress branches or elm and willow branches mentioned earlier, or with the help of buildings or people's clothing in the scenery.

Tree hanging is a kind of landscape after snowfall. In order to photograph the texture of tree hanging, it is best to use tree hanging as a close-up view, and then use the distant view of snow as a background. If you are shooting snow scenes with black and white film, it is best to use a yellow filter or a red filter. Because the sky after snow is usually gray-white. If you are shooting snow scenes in color, it is best to use a polarizer.

The most advantageous time and method to take pictures of simple snow scenes is:

When the snow is falling, especially when it is snowing heavily, use a smaller aperture, such as a standard lens. Use an aperture of f/11 or f/16, place the distance ruler at 5 meters, mount the camera on a tripod, find a dark background, and use a slower shutter speed, such as 1/30 second, to capture the falling snow. traces.

When the sun slants down on the ground, the uneven snow casts shadows on itself, adding texture and volume.

Using color film to shoot snow scenes and adding a polarizer can not only adjust the color of the sky, but also eliminate reflections and lower the color temperature. Because the color temperature is higher in snow, blue shadows will appear.

Use a lens hood whenever possible to prevent stray reflected light from entering the lens.

Exposure application of snow scenes

Correct exposure is the most basic issue in shooting snow scenes. The parts of the scenery with snow are very bright, while the parts without snow appear very dark, which makes the contrast between each part very high. The metering value of most digital cameras is obtained by the reflection of the scene. Therefore, if you meter directly against the snow scene, the picture taken will be darker. At this time, you must perform exposure compensation to obtain normal exposure. .

Some friends may not be very clear about the concept of exposure compensation. Simply put, exposure compensation is to increase or decrease the exposure based on the exposure measured by the camera. For example, when aperture priority is used, the exposure parameter measured by the camera is F2.8, 1/60 second. If one stop of exposure compensation is added at this time, the exposure parameter will be changed to F2.8, 1/30 second, which is reduced by one stop. Exposure compensation, then the exposure parameters will be changed to F2.8, 1/125 seconds. Not all digital cameras can provide exposure compensation, so you can use manual mode to adjust the aperture and shutter, and you can still achieve the same exposure. Generally speaking, adding one stop of exposure compensation can achieve better results. Of course, this is not absolute and needs to be adjusted according to the scene. Depends on the environment. Therefore, after shooting, playback the picture in time to judge the increase or decrease of exposure compensation. It should be noted that not all snow scenes require exposure compensation. Exposure compensation is only considered when snow occupies a majority of the area in the picture. compensation effect.