Camera College

The complete guide to modern photography

Make the most of your winter photography

You don’t have to travel far to record the beautiful effects of winter weather, whether it’s snow, rain or shine. But how should you set up your camera?

We might be in the bleak midwinter, but for photographers who are prepared to put up with the cold and the wet and dig into their creative reserves, it really is anything but bleak.

It’s fair to say that the great outdoors can look a little ‘earthy’ at this time of year, though, so it pays to be prepared for the pockets of visual joy that occasionally open. From snow-covered scenes and frosted garden plants to punchy sunsets and nature’s great events (such as vast flocks of migrating geese and starling murmurations, to name just two), there are plenty of opportunities for terrific pictures – as long as you’re ready for them.

The first thing to do is make sure that you know your way around your camera’s exposure compensation controls. Faced with bare skies, snow, ice, and fog, your camera may end up delivering pictures that are too dark. Essentially, it interprets all those pale scenes as mid-tone subjects that are too bright or overexposed, so it reduces the exposure accordingly. Even a scene lit by the low light of a winter’s day can be enough for the camera to produce an overly dark image.