Winter is a great time for photography, with the snow covered trees, houses with snowy rooftops, snow covered mountains, and everything else covered with snow all make for some great looking photos. In order to capture some great winter scenes you have to be willing brave the cold and snow though.

HDR photography image of snowy luzern switzerland and mount pilatus

When going out to snap winter scenes remember to dress extra warm, especially if you aren’t going to be moving very much. If you are going to be standing in one spot for long periods, you will quickly get cold, so dress warm. It would also be smart to take some of them hand and feet warmers that you can buy from most stores in the winter. You use them one time and put them in your pockets or gloves or boots and your hands and feet will be kept toasty warm.

Another good winter photography tip is to use a pair of them gloves or mittens that have a removable cover for the fingers. When you are working with the camera you can uncover your fingers, and then you can cover them again to keep them warm.

Remember when you are photography a scene with mostly white snow, your cameras light meter will probably give you the wrong exposure setting. Camera meters want expose for an average scene, because it thinks of neutral gray as the perfect exposure. So when there is mostly snow in the scene it will underexpose the scene to make the snow more grayish color. You should then overexpose the scene by plus 1 or 2 exposure stops.

Here is one of our beginners photography tips on snow photography:

Photo Tip #8) Overexpose Snow/White Scenes

If you have a scene with mostly white like snow, set the camera’s Exposure Compensation to overexpose the photo by +2/3 to +2 or more if necessary. Also new cameras have build in photo settings, where you can pick “Snow Scene” and the camera will overexpose for you. This overexposure is necessary because a camera’s light meter views neutral gray as the perfect exposure, so it will try and expose a scene to get the overall photo to equal neutral gray. To read more about this photo tip, please click here, Overexpose Snow/White Scenes

So get out and enjoy the snow and capture some great snow scenes and don’t forget to come back and post your favorite photo here. Take care and have a great new year, Bob