Winter Shooting...

This Saturday and Sunday, I have the opportunity to go to the Iditarod start (in Anchorage) & re-start (in Willow). Since we've just moved to the area, we will be doing this, if for no other reason then it'll be cool as hell!

That said, I'd like to take the opportunity to get some (hopefully) stock quality shots of the races.

Are there any hints for avoiding noise in snowy photos, since we seem to be getting hit with a big snow dump at the moment (yay!) and my early experiments with snow, seems to result in a fairly noisy picture.

Looking through accepted photos, it seems on average, the snow filled ones tend to be a hair noisier than a standard shot. Is some noise an accepted result of shooting a winter scene?

I have a few shots of my kids that I need to get the model releases done for, so I can upload them. Alas, it won't be happening today.

Thanks!

Diana

You have to make sure you get the exposure right, this means overexposing the scene compared to what your meter reading gives you.

Otherwise, everything turns out gray, and you'd have to boost the brightness on the computer. This will create noise because you're trying to create more data from what wasn't there to begin with.

Shoot in RAW format, check your histogram and watch for underexposure.

Also, remember to check your white balance so you don't get "blue snow"

Thanks for the tips. Guess, I'll make some use of the "under expose, auto expose & over expose" bit on the camera. I wish my camera had RAW format but alas it doesn't. I opted for a health club membership for the year rather than a new camera or laptop. Silly me! :P

Now, if all my clients pay their bills this year, I'll upgrade

Diana

PS Isn't snow blue?

I've seen yellow snow up close but I've only seen "blue" snow in pictures.

For quick overexposure of snow, if your camera has a "spot" meter setting, set it to that. This way you can lock the exposure on a dark jacket or shadow leaving the snow slightly overexposed.

polarized filter helps. You'll get lots of glare off snow from the low sun.

The polarized lens should also help as a neutral density filter to help cut down the overexposure of back lit shots. Bring a flash with you too. I find snow shots usually throws the dark foreground exposure way off.

A good lens hood helps.

You can use exposure compensation and bracketing if your camera has these two functions.

I'd turn up the exposure compensation anywhere from +0.3 to +1.3 depending on light conditions (direct sunlight, overcast, etc..).

Bracketing allows you to program your camera to automatically vary exposure, flash level, and white balance over a set number of shots. Then you can go ahead and pick the best one exposure.

cool tips, now I just have to wait for snow... Thanx guys

As a side note I have quite a few snow photos in my portfolio. Feel free to ask me any questions about them.