SNOW! How to Capture it Accurately in the Camera (VIDEO)

That fluffy white stuff on the ground may look pretty but it poses some of the more difficult challenges for intrepid outdoor shooters, whether the task is landscapes, wildlife imagery, skiers on the slopes, or environmental portraits. This tutorial from the Light Meets Lens YouTube channel explains everything you need to know in barely eight minute for capturing snow scenes that look like they did in the field.

Instructor Nick Kuhne is a prominent landscape/seascape photographer based in Toronto where multiple feet of snow is a common occurrence during long winters—so he's the perfect guy for today's behind-the-scenes episode. As he says, "Snow is particularly difficult to capture because it's pure white."

But here's the problem that you may have discovered in the past: Under different lighting conditions this colorless ground cover can actually appear orange, blue, or dirty gray. That's because the meter in your camera is calibrated for "average subjects,"  i.e. those with a tonal value of 18% gray.

Hence, photos of snow scenes (or portraits of black cats) require a bit of intervention on your part with specific techniques for making the white right.

Kuhne is working under frigid temperatures at a lake at Alberta's beautiful Banff National Park and the goal is pretty simple—configuring the camera to capture the snow-covered landscape without blown highlights, shadows lacking detail, and nary the hint of an ugly color cast anywhere in the scene.

Careful composition and your position relative to the sun are other issues worthy of consideration. Time of day also factors into the equation for nailing exposure and properly balancing color. Kuhne provides a link in the description beneath the video so you can watch his earlier episode where you'll learn how to edit winter images like never before.

You'll also be rewarded for visiting the Light Meets Lens YouTube channel where there's much more to learn.

And don't miss an earlier tutorial we featured with another experienced pro who demonstrates a simple post-process technique for adding impact to outdoor photographs with a moody and realistic fog effect in Lightroom.