Meter right to keep winter scenes white: How to shoot pictures in the snow

Any beginning photographer wielding a camera in snow gets pretty surprised when they see his or her first results: All that fluffy white stuff, more often than not, turns gray in the picture.

The solution? Do not to trust your in-camera meter when shooting snow scenes.

To keep the background snow white in Wagon in Falling Snow, I spot-metered the ground and then opened up 2 stops. Nikon F5, Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8. More Americana Pictures.

In winter settings dominated by white, your camera's meter tries to make the snow gray. This results in "dirty snow" and "bad exposure." If you're shooting digital, you've made "extra work" for yourself; if slide film, you've created "lots of trash." Basically, the snow in your photos is dull and dark, the shadows have lost all detail, and your mid-tones are muddy.

Here are two options for saving yourself from a drift of deficiently exposed snow scenes:

1. Spot-meter on an area of bright white snow, then open up 1.5 to 2 stops under sunny conditions, .5 to 1 stop under cloudy skies. This should give you an accurate exposure.
2. If you don't have a spot meter, use your camera's matrix meter to attain an exposure estimate, then open up one stop and bracket for three frames (a half-stop in either direction).

Snow on Orchard. Nikon F5, Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8. More Agriculture Pictures.

If you're shooting digital, check your histogram. You'll want it to read high on the right (indicating that there's a lot of white in the frame) without being clipped too much (use the highlight-warning feature, if your camera has it).

This technique is applicable in warm weather, as well — when shooting at the beach on a sunny day, that bright sand will fool your meter just the same the snow did.