Winter is coming…
/a look at surviving a winter shoot in the frozen lands. How do you protect yourself, and not to mention the most precious of all, your camera gear? Can you get amazing photographs in the freezing temperatures of winter without losing a finger or two to frostbite?
Whether or not you live in a country of always winter or only over holidaying, it is always a good idea to be prepared. So that when you go out for a planned winter shoot or just happen to find yourself gazing out over that picture perfect winter wonderland scene, you know how to make the best of the situation.
Dress up!
No you aren’t going to put on your finest formal-wear for this. Finding yourself in -25°C even on a dry winters day without any wind will still get you cold pretty fast, believe me I’ve been there. If you haven’t dressed appropriately for the occasion, all you’ll be thinking of is to get out of the cold rather than focusing on the scene in front of you.
So put on a good pair of pants, a jacket and a hat to keep you warm. Select good shoes or boots as you may well find yourself trekking through deep snow. Plus you want to be protected should snow start falling and the windchill pick up during the shoot.
Gloves could probably be an entire blog post in itself, this is such an important choice so choose wisely! Your fingers needs to be warm enough to work the camera, but at the same time you don’t want to wear bulky gloves that you have to take off every time you need to press the shutter button, change a setting on the camera, zoom or focus your lens.
You can find gloves on Amazon, in your local hiking/outdoors shop and possibly in well stocked photography shops. Adorama has a gear guide to help find the gloves best suited for your style of shooting.
Be careful not to over dress though. Again we're not taking about that formal-wear you wore to the latest outdoors survival training. Wearing to much clothing can be a bad thing. You want to be able to move around comfortably without starting to sweat like you’re in a Finnish sauna, although visiting one to warm up after the shoot is not a bad idea.
Minding your camera gear
Nikon D70s | 19mm @ f/8.0 | Manfrotto XB055 Tripod | Kirk Enterprises BH-3 Ball Head | L-Bracket
Batteries
Batteries drain much faster in the cold. So it is critical to have a full charge and one or more backup batteries with you. Keep the backup batteries close to your body to keep them warm and from the cold.
Rain covers
If you get caught out in the snow, it can creep thought the crevices and melt inside your lens or camera. This is obviously not a good thing. Amazon and your local photography store will carry rain covers. After all snow is frozen rain. You can even make your own rain cover if you don't want to spend the money.
Changing lenses
If the snow is falling or there is a wind out snow can easily blow into your camera when you change lenses. This can cause moisture and destroy the sensor if you are unlucky. If you have to change lenses, go back to you car or make sure you shelter the camera properly while doing so.
Keeping the camera cold
If you need to put your camera away for any extended period, use a good camera bag. Do not put you camera inside your jacket. This will cause the lens to fogging.
So when that reindeer shows up for the perfect Bambi shot you've always wanted, and you pull out the camera, all you can see fog and some oddly shaped objects.
Lens cloths
Subtle temperature changes can cause the camera's lens element to fog up. Bring a few lens cloths with you to clean the lens and any filters you carry.
Shooting the scene
So you are standing in front of the most amazing winter vista the world has ever seen, you raise the camera to your eye and start shooting. You look at the pictures and realise none of them are a snowy white. Instead they all are underexposed, the snow is a grey(ish) colour and you can swear you’re seeing some blue colourcast in there as well. In worst case you didn’t even check the pictures out in the field, instead you waited until you got home which would be even more terrible. Yes there are software to fix this in the digital dark room for the most part.
But why not get it correct in camera saving you time in the digital darkroom?
Exposure and white balance
Nikon D70s | 70mm @ f/8 | Handheld
Because snow is white, the camera's metering system will think the scene is too bright and underexpose to compensate for this. What you need to do is to deliberately overexpose using your cameras exposure compensation or shooting in manual mode to overcome this. Start by overexposing by a stop and check the results on the back of your camera.
This would also be a great time to turn on the highlight warnings that make the preview image on the back of your camera flash/blink in certain areas. This is telling you that you have gone beyond what the camera is capable of recording, and you are now loosing detail in those areas of the frame. When this happens dial the exposure compensation down until you aren't clipping the highlights. You can also use the histogram to check this if you prefer that method.
Once you have the exposure correct, check your white balance and make any adjustments needed to get rid of any colour casts. These adjustments, although basic and simple are what makes the snow go white in your photo.
Framing
Snow is white, snow is white, snow is? Yes it’s white.
Look for contrasting colours that really stand out in the sea of white to break up the scene so it’s not all white, all the time. As the sun is very low in the sky during the winter months, it creates some awesome long shadows and other high contrast scenes to be experimented with. Black and white processing can yield wonderful results as well.
Or why not change it up completely with the early setting of the sun and let the moon light your foreground on a clear starry night.
Nikon D700 | 14mm @ f/2.8 | Gitzo Traveller Tripod | Kirk Enterprises BH-3 Ball Head | L-Bracket | Nikon MC-36 Cable Release
Camera support
In winter you will be battling low light and fleeting light as days grow shorter. If there is overcast skies this drastically decreased light as well. A tripod becomes an essential piece of equipment to have with you to ensure you can get those perfectly tack sharp photos.
The takeaway
Dress warm so you can enjoy the time out in the snow for extended periods of time. Bring a thermos of hot coco or other warm beverage and some sandwiches if you plan to stay out for a full day away from the comforts of a city or town. In that case you should also inform someone where you are going, your planned route and when you expect to be back. You never know what might be hidden under that blanket of snow while trekking though a forest, hiking over mountains or if you get caught in a blizzard.
But most important of all go out have fun and enjoy those winter shoots!
