gthompsn

I have been doing photos of snow flakes off and on for over 15 years and it's definitely a lot of work to get spectacular photos with good lighting and focus. I started in film days when instant gratification wasn't possible and waiting to develop the B/W film myself was part of the joy (and disappointment). As an atmospheric scientist as well as advanced amateur photographer, I greatly enjoyed the challenge of making intricate photos of snow flakes with a combination of moderate zoom lens and "reverse mounted" wide angle lens. The most difficulty I encountered related to getting the most pristine snow flakes, lighting it nicely, and getting sharp focus throughout the image, let alone the cold conditions. A few of my own techniques to convey: I use a 10x10 inch (approx) plexiglass base covered in black velvet to capture falling snow flakes. Picking out the best candidates was easier this way. I use a 150mm (35mm equiv) macro lens, male-to-male adapting ring, and 28mm 'wide angle' reverse mounted lens for roughly 4X multiplication. I've used combinations of many different lenses to get a large variety of multiplications - experiment with your own. LED lighting (such as a hiking head lamp) obliquely gives nice results on a "stage" with tripod-mounted camera. Transfer a candidate snow flake from the black velvet to the lit stage using a very small artist paint brush. Focussing with a reverse-mounted lens is seriously challenging because the depth of field with this lens combination is so incredibly "shallow" that you can often focus from one plane of the crystal to the other. Any slight incantation of the crystal gives non-uniform focus and even static electricity can wreak havoc. In my own experience, I won't even attempt to create snowflake photos unless the temperature is below 27F, because the smallest bit of melting shows up as more rounded edges on the snow crystals. I have thousands of photos from film and digital era and a few are posted in my gallery here.