Winter is here and snow will soon be falling; so what are you going to do about it?
What you are going to do is photograph the winter landscape…it isn’t hard, but being prepared is what will make it successful or a failure. When I was in the Canadian Rockies during the month of February a few years ago, I froze my butt off when temperatures were hitting -29F each day; and I was dressed for extreme temperatures. When it is that cold, all you care about is warmth, not photography. There were amazing bubbles of methane on Lake Abraham; I took perhaps three shots and ran for the car.
Fortunately, we don’t get that kind of cold here, but it is important to stay warm when photographing in winter; how you feel will impact your images.
Here are a few suggestions for winter landscape photography:
- Warm clothes in layers. I love wool or polyester/wool blends. Don’t wear jeans or cotton.
- Wool hat
- Wool socks with warmers in my boots.
- Hand warmers stuffed in pockets; I wear those mitt/gloves, but they suck.
- Waterproof boots of course and what I find works really well are those snowboarder’s pants…you look cool, too.
Now, on to the camera equipment:
- Bring only the lenses you need…I usually carry one wide angle and one short telephoto in a backpack. Keep batteries in your coat to keep them warm; they will last longer.
- Remember that the camera sensor loves 18% grey, and it will make snow that color..what I usually use as a starting point is to overexpose one stop on snow..then if I can’t find what I want, the bracketing begins. Once there is an exposure that works well, I switch to manual and use that setting…check the histogram so you don’t blow the highlights. Here are a couple of examples:
correct exposure for snow 
underexposed - I usually like to carry a polarizer with me for the sky, since in winter there are a lot of blue skies. It will enhance the sky and make it a vivid blue; beware of it on super wide angle lenses as it cannot polarize the whole sky and may create a dark blue area in the center of your image…be certain you are 90 degrees to the angle of the sun to use it successfully.
- If you want to experiment and are in a valley or canyon, a fisheye lens can give amazing results.
- Another idea that is fun to try is the blue/gold polarizer. Singh-ray makes a very good one; it screws onto your lens and rotates like a polarizer, but can change the color of water to blue or gold. You must remove the regular circular polarizer when you use the blue/gold. I use it mainly in winter with snow or ice on the ground as it is a very difficult filter to use effectively…here is an example of the blue/gold polarizer.
- And don’t forget to try abstracts as well as landscapes..here is ice with a little snow on it..
Winter is when it is easy to give up and stay indoors…but don’t! Go out and be creative! - One final tip: when you come inside from shooting in a cold environment: do not take your camera out of the bag until it has reached room temperature, otherwise, there will be condensation on the lens and if you remove a lens, sometimes inside the camera; we all know that water and electronics don’t mix…
