snowy night shots

[aaron_thurston]

Whats the best why to get good shots on a snowy night? From a street

light or such. Thanks

[gauthier]

It depends. Do you want to capture falling snow, or just want to show ground snow?

[mark e]

Spot meter off the snow and increase exposure by 1-2 stops (I would do both if slide film is used)

[gauthier]

For falling snow, the exposure lenght is the critical factor. With short durations, with flash for instance, flakes appears immobile and frozen in place, which is not very suggestive. Times of about 1/15 (plus or minus one stop, depending on the strenght of the wind) are usually a good starting point to get short streaks.

 

The problem will be how to achieve such a short time under night conditions. If the street lamp is relatively powerful, 1/15 at f/4 for ISO 400 should be enough. Note that after a long, multisecond exposre, falling snow will actually look like fog, which can also be an intesresting effect.

 

If you want to use flash to freeze the flash motion, be sure to balance its output to ambiant light. It output should be very short, in the 1/20,000 s range, effectively freezing motion. For a natural looking effect, shoot for available light and use the flash off camera, looking up and making sure the flash doesn't hit ground snow.

 

And oh, use a lens shade and don't shoot against the wind, otherwise snow will build up in you shade, against the lens. It would be advisable to keep an UV filter on your lens all the time.