Taking pictures in winter

Winter is a great time to take photographs. The skies are crisp and blue, and in areas of the country where there’s snow, a whole world of possibilities open up for the photographer Snowstorms are beautiful, and the gentle blankets of snow left after a blizzard are wonderful photographic subjects. A tree covered in the crystalline shimmer of an ice storm is fascinating. Keep in mind, wintertime photography can be tricky — but armed with the right tips, you’ll be ready to tackle the first snow of the season and come back with great pictures.

Longer Life
Cameras run on battery power, and batteries hate the cold. The chemicals in batteries that create electricity don’t work well when the temperature drops, so if you’d like to extend your picture taking possibilities, remember to keep the camera inside your jacket. This great trick doesn’t only work with cameras, by the way. Keep your MP3 player or your phone close to your body in the cold, and they’ll work longer, too!

LCD screens hate the cold as well, and the screens use a lot of power. If your camera has an LCD screen, it’s a good idea to turn it off when working in the cold.
Speaking of the cold, holding a digital camera during the winter can lead to chilly fingers. Some people go without gloves when doing winter photography, but it’s a better idea to use a pair of fingerless gloves or gloves designed specifically for winter photographers, with fingertips that fold back out of the way.
Meter right
Modern cameras have meters inside them that automatically figure out how to take the picture with the correct exposure. They look at the view through the lens and figure out how the camera should set the shutter and the aperture. But that system gets fooled by the brightness of snow, and thinks that it needs to make a much, much darker picture than it does. There are a few ways to get around this so that your pictures turn out great.
Many cameras have a setting called Exposure Compensation that allows you to manually change the camera’s automatic metering. Different cameras have different systems for doing this (see your camera’s manual for more information) but setting the exposure compensation to approximately –2 will make your pictures come out the right color.
Some digital pictures of a snowy scene may come out looking especially blue or green. This coloring (called a color cast) can be corrected in Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Photoshop.

Winter photography is challenging, but that’s exactly what makes it so much fun. With a few simple steps, taking pictures of the snow can be as easy as taking shots during the middle of summer.

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