Black & White capture of snow landscape

[patois]

Thanks for the snow help. I live in New England and snow always vexes me.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thanks for the snow help. I live in New England and snow always vexes me.

I can understand that. In Southern California the snow stays on the mountains for the skiers and snowboarders and ice is on skating rinks and in drinks. Putting ice and snow on the sidewalks and roads is just plain silly. Come on the concept is not that hard, get with the program. Then you will not be vexed.

Steve

 

[jp498]

This last sample photo appears to have too much contrast.

When using an SLR with built in meter, I usually add a stop of light, otherwise the shadows are too dark from the snow messing with the light meter.

With a camera with no meter, I use a handheld incident meter in the normal manner. This is with a speed graphic 4x5, minolta incident light & flash meter, tmy2, D76, epson v700.

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It's also easy to see differences in brightness of snow because of scene lighting. You see here, the area under the tree is a little darker than the background, so the left background is blown out. Basically, where you stand and take a meter reading is where the snow is going to be perfect. If I had to make the snow brightness more uniform, I could print this with less contrast, or if I kept the same contrast the foreground would be a little darker than you see here, and some dodging would fix that. Another option is to choose a scene where all the snow in the image is more evenly illuminated like here:

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[jordanstarr]

I will second all the advice above, but seriously would stress bracketing and RECORDING IT. The readings will be different based on where the sun is facing, the overall coverage of light, etc. If you want to shoot well in the snow, you need to shoot a roll, record every detail, and examine the results. It's a brutal process, but when you drag out all the information, you can come to your own simple rule-of-thumb conclusion that is based on what YOU like in the photograph (ie. meter off snow, open two stops). You can also try polarizers and other b&w filters to add or subtract contrast, glare, etc. That throws in a whole new dynamic that will make it very important to record information on each frame and find out what works best for you.

 

[Sirius Glass]

This last sample photo appears to have too much contrast.

When using an SLR with built in meter, I usually add a stop of light, otherwise the shadows are too dark from the snow messing with the light meter.

With a camera with no meter, I use a handheld incident meter in the normal manner. This is with a speed graphic 4x5, minolta incident light & flash meter, tmy2, D76, epson v700.

Dead Link Removed

It's also easy to see differences in brightness of snow because of scene lighting. You see here, the area under the tree is a little darker than the background, so the left background is blown out. Basically, where you stand and take a meter reading is where the snow is going to be perfect. If I had to make the snow brightness more uniform, I could print this with less contrast, or if I kept the same contrast the foreground would be a little darker than you see here, and some dodging would fix that. Another option is to choose a scene where all the snow in the image is more evenly illuminated like here:

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I think the exposures in these two are good. You just need some darkroom time to improve the prints.

Steve

 

[jp498]

I think the exposures in these two are good. You just need some darkroom time to improve the prints.

Steve

That's right. These haven't been printed yet; just quick scans of the negatives. I'd expect the silver prints to look better.

 

[steelneck]

I live above the arctic cirkle in sweden, so snow is my reality at leat 7-8 months a year. Reflective meters will lie, period. Actually, in bright sun they can tell the truth since shadows get much stronger then and balance all that light. The worst conditions is actually in dull grey weather, end even worse, in fog. In those conditions you sometimes have to go two hwole stops over the meter, but that is extremes. Snow scenes react to light much more than summer scenes, naturally, and this as equally true to both highlights and shadows. Gray and dull wheather looks even more dull in snow, usually very low in contrast, and the opposite in sun. Normally the advice is to not shoot in the middle of the day, but that is not equally true in snow. Morning and evening light in snow gives pictures with a quite low contrast, usually looks much better in the middle of the day, that is if we are not talking about shooting against the light. Snow is a wonderful reflector and you can have the sun even straight in the picture without everything else going black.