How to shoot charming snow scenes

No matter what angle you take landscape photography, the ultimate goal is an aesthetic activity carried out by photographers using lens language. In the face of nature, whether it is technical photography with careful light control or thematic photography with one's own mood, the love for the land and mountains under one's feet is described by lens language.

Winter is the season to tell stories about snow scenes. So, how do SLR cameras shoot scenery in snowy days?

1, equipment selection

The ambient temperature for shooting snow scenes is relatively low, so I suggest you consider taking a professional and reliable SLR. In the choice of lens for shooting landscape works, telephoto and wide angle are the main methods. In addition, you often need to carry tripods, polarizers, hoods and other equipment.

2, the protection of equipment

Cold weather must be a severe challenge for people and cameras. The first is temperature, people are afraid of cold, and machines are also afraid of cold. When shooting, you should consciously protect the camera with your hands to prevent snow from entering the fuselage. I suggest that you can also prepare an anti-freezing warm cover for your camera and put on a thick cotton-padded coat for your camera. In addition, the camera has a certain working temperature, so does the battery. In order to keep them warm, you can put some camera battery packs in warm pockets and then connect them with cameras through wires. This will keep your battery warm without affecting the shooting. If you think this is troublesome, or your camera can't do it, then you can use the most primitive method, which is to preheat the battery in advance. It's simple and mechanical, but it allows you to take more photos.

Don't think that your camera will be safe when you come back from filming. When you return from a cold place to a warm place, remember not to start taking pictures right away. Cameras, like people, need to adapt to the new environment. If you take it out directly, the lens will be covered with water vapor. Wait a few minutes for the camera to warm up before taking pictures. In addition, when shooting with viewfinder in cold weather, the water vapor exhaled by yourself sometimes makes the camera lens hazy, so don't be lazy, take a mask to shoot, carry lens cloth with you and clean the camera at any time.

3, snow exposure skills

Snow exposure is different from conventional exposure. The reflected light of snow will be very strong in clear sunshine, so it is difficult to set up exposure value to shoot the scene. The standard photometry method of restoring 18% gray level will make the white snow surface in the picture gray, which will bring some difficulties to shooting.

So at this time, we need to adjust the exposure or use the backlight correction function to compensate the light quantity of the subject to achieve the ideal shooting effect. We need to set the gain of the machine higher and choose a darker contrast when shooting, so as to get good results.

In order to show the crystal-clear temperament of the picture, it is necessary to sidelight the snow surface based on the snow, and use spot metering to sidelight the snow surface. On this basis, the exposure value 1.5 is increased to 2, and the texture details of the snow surface are preserved while the snow surface is bright and white.

Of course, if you have the conditions, you can buy some filters to shoot, so as to achieve the best results.

4. Setting skills of white balance in snow

The automatic white balance of digital cameras is generally set at about 5600K to adapt to shooting in most light environments, but for light that is too dark or too bright and complicated, the automatic white balance of digital cameras often fails. Snow falls into the category of too bright. Therefore, it is suggested that you can try to control the white balance manually when shooting snow scenes, and try to adjust the white balance of the camera to the position of 8000 k-10000 k.

5. Scene shooting skills

Since it is snowy, snow scenery is naturally the best choice. Whether it is the glittering and translucent snow falling on the shoulders or the heavy snow flying all over the sky, it gives people an inviolable sense of holiness. If you have photographed the fog in autumn, you might as well come again in winter. The looming hazy scene in the snow-capped mountains is completely different from that in the clear autumn.

6. Do you remember the ice tree hanging outside the window when you were a child? They can be a landscape, or they can make other people's landscapes. Using branches, flowers, buildings covered with ice or thick snow as the foreground of shooting not only increases the depth of space and improves the expressive force of snow scene, but also distinguishes snow scene from the surrounding gray-white scenery, so as not to form a white picture.

7. If you think it's too monotonous to just shoot the snow scene, you can add some jumping colors to the background, which can be buildings, small objects or even individuals. It is also interesting to use color conflict to form contrast.

Note: When shooting scenery in cold weather, pay attention to the warmth of the machine. It is recommended to prepare an anti-freezing warm cover for SLR cameras!