Feb. 2002
President's
Message
Article - "Cool Things to Try in the Cold Season - Part 2"
Cool Things to Try in the Cold Season - Part 2
Have you read part 1?
- Ray Firmani
Winter is one of the most beautiful
times of year, providing everything from sunny, clear skies to blizzards
for the photographer to capture on film or memory card. Here is the second
installment of ideas for you to try this winter.
9. Snow Exposure - Reflected-light
meters, including those built into cameras, are calibrated for medium
tones. Whatever you take a reading from will be reproduced as a medium
tone if you expose according to the meter reading. Snow is generally thought
of as white, not a medium tone, so snow pictures generally look best when
sunlit snow appears white. The multi-segment meters built into today’s
AF 35mm SLR cameras do a pretty good job of reproducing snow with no correction,
but with older center-weighted meters, it’s a good idea to increase
exposure 1-1½ stops from the metered reading. In AE mode, you can
do this by setting the camera’s exposure compensation control to
+1 or +1.5.
It’s a good idea to bracket exposures and take notes the first time you take snow pictures with your camera to see what, if any, compensation is needed to reproduce the snow the way you want it to look in your photos.
10. Winter Activities - As is the case at any time of year, you can get some great shots by recording seasonal activities. In winter, skiing, sledding, ice skating, or mountain climbing are some of the seasonal activities that provide lots of photo ops. Photograph the action and the participants, and you can enjoy the activities again in the future.