Canadians love winter and YouTube space
Toronto is making us feel at home by
putting up some winter scenes - which
seems like a perfect opportunity to
share some winter photo tips. I invited a
few experts to drop by.
Alright Neil, thanks. Got the camera,
got the gloves, got a scarf ... I think I'm going to
be warm and ready to go. What have you got?
Maarten you do look set up, but I want to
talk about what happens when we go into
really cold and wet environments, so I
brought along the Nikon D5. The reason why
this digital SLR camera is so
fantastic is the water sealing
capabilities it has. So the
D5 is always the rig I take into the
field when I'm working in cold and really
wet places. But I also want to talk about
how to keep oneself warm. So you
know it's important to have a jacket
important to have those layers but I
also bring this into the field so you're
sort of typical umbrella that I use that
if i'm lucky enough to have an assistant
with me we pop this out and we're able
to stay a lot drier. So it might seem a
little gimmicky to bring an umbrella
long but it's always worth it and the
only trouble you have with it is getting
onto the airplane. Right that's a problem.
I've also brought a few cloths to
explain my tiered system of cloths.
You got one too - so what I
do with these guys is I put them in different pockets.
Did you say tiered system of cloths?
It's a tiered system of cloths, yes.
So I'll have one cloth that I
know I can use right away to get off
most of the wetness, most of the snow.
Then I put that away and I'll pull out a
second cloth that allows me to fine-tune
some of that a bit and then of course
I've got that third cloth that allows me
to get the lens, buttons and things like that.
So it's a three-tiered system,
because one of them is normally wetter
than the others and it frustrates me
wonderful a cloth and it's too wet.
Right. Do you keep them in the same pocket?
I put them in different pockets.
If I'm really in the zone -
I put them in different pockets so I
know which one is dryer and which
one is more wet.
I've also got to hand warmers
You know the typical thing
is to put them in your pockets but I
like to put them into my boots and I can ...
I do put them in
pockets just to warm my hands up again.
Yeah, you bet drop it into your
boots next time and keep your feet warm.
Then the last item I have here today is
a really big waterproof bag because
of course you know that inclement flurry
or it starts to rain suddenly, you want
to be able to put your gear into a bag
that's going to keep things dry. So this
is my kit. These are
the tricks of of my kit.
Are your portraits in snow scenes slightly under
exposed, or is your snow coming out a
little bit gray? There's a way to fix
that with most digital cameras and in
most cases a digital camera will
actually have a scene position designed
specifically for snow scenes.
On this camera I would go into
my menu, select one of the scene
positions that shows it as being snow
and that will make sure
that my scene is completely, that the
snow is nice and white but that my faces
are nice and well exposed
and skin tones are accurate.
You may at times also require a
little bit of fill flash to ensure that
you don't have underexposed features.
Many of the professional or
higher-end cameras have a custom white
balance feature as well.
In cameras like this, you would go into
white balance settings and you would
then see custom white balance and what
that allows you to do is to use the snow
itself as your white card. You can also
use a grey card and this is probably
your best solution. This will ensure that
everything is very well balanced but in
a pinch you can always use the snow as
your scene to ensure that you have
everything well balanced for your portraits.
I've learned so much about
shooting in winter through many failed
attempts. After all those mishaps I
actually got it. I use three pairs of gloves.
The first one is a grippy kind
of glove that is touch sensitive.
Then, a photography glove which has the
thumb and index finger that snaps back
into magnets. Then on top of
the second glove goes a third one.
I cut the fingertips off so that
these fingers actually go through.
So 3 gloves. Second thing is battery.
So with battery I always use external
battery packs to power my camera.
Many Sony cameras have USB charging -
so as long as there's a battery inside
the camera, you can connect your
cable up and then you connect USB and
away you go.
So now that we have the warmth issue
figured out, we have our shooting issue.
You get out there and everything
is white - how you going to take a
well exposed picture in snow?
You have to actually overcompensate.
So, you have to increase your exposure by
minimum 1 to 2 stops. Even if you have all
your settings set correctly there's
still a huge dynamic range to deal with.
In this situation
Sony has an auto HDR exposure
compensation that goes from off to an EV
correction of one all the way up to six.
So you can actually compensate for up to
six stops. Once you select the setting,
press the shutter. The camera takes three
images, combines them into one.
If it's too much, or not enough, make the
adjustment until you get the image you want.
An important thing to consider when
photographing winter scenes and snow in
general is that you want to make sure
that the tones of whites are bright and
don't turn grey. Most camera meters will
average out the scene that they meter
and basically would make white tones
grayish and black tones also grayish.
Basically you want to
force that white to be brighter.
I'm using the Lumix gGX 85 here and it
allows me to easily and quickly see the
scene real-time and adjust for that.
If I point my meter at a white scene
you'll see the histogram is straight
down the middle line because it's
averaged out. It's kind of gray in the middle
with the GX85 is a histogram that I
can move anywhere I want
so I can see real-time exposure and if
it's on an area by default that I'm
critical focusing on I can move it
around out of the way. On the back button
of the GX85, you push it -
It gives you the option to
perform exposure compensation and
exposure compensation allows you
to under or over exposure photo purposely.
As I force the exposure to the right -
say approximately 2 stops now my
histogram
shows proper whites, it's brighter and
you want to get your histogram as far to
the right as possible without actually
hitting the edge of the window.
There's also on the back screen your bracketing
option which allows you to take a series
of photos under or over exposed and has
different options for how many photos
you want to take.
So put on your toques and get out there shooting.
One of the things that can really add some
magic to your winter photos is when you
catch the falling snow in the picture.
Like in this photo - one of my favourites
The snow falling through the shot really
gives it the feeling of winter.
But how do you capture those falling snowflakes?
It's not that hard, but there are a few
things to think about and the most
important thing is shutter speed.
A slow shutter speed, say 1/60 of a second
will usually give you a photo where
the falling snow is blurred - like this shot.
That can add some drama to a shot.
But a faster shutter speed say 1/125 or
1/250 of a second will freeze the
snowflakes, so they hang in the air.
But shutter speed isn't the only factor.
Zooming in will make the snow more
prominent in the shot and make the
separate snowflakes more distinct.
Here's a snow scene shot at a wide-angle
setting and here's the same shot after I
zoomed in. You can see that the snow is a
lot more visible in the second shot.
What about aperture? If you use a small
aperture, say F16 you'll get more
snowflakes in focus. However using a big
aperture like F4 gives you less depth of field,
so you can get a photo with a few
sharp snowflakes in front of a soft
looking backdrop.
Next, the falling snow will be a lot more visible
if you can choose a dark background.
The snow stands out bette,r as you can see
in this shot. Those are the basic techniques for
catching falling snowflakes in your shot.
But every scene is different. There are
even different kinds of snowfalls like
driving snow or gentle snow that just
floats down. So experiment a little with
your shutter speeds and f-stops to get
the shot you want. Take a lot of shots
and you'll come back with something
suitable for framing.
I just got back from a trip to Germany.
I was covering the Christmas markets and I filmed
a number of videos about my experience
which you guys can check out when you
have the chance. But what I love about
Christmas markets is just that
magical feeling that they have and
they're perfect for photography,
especially if you love night photography,
or light photography. So in terms of my
setup I always set my camera to manual mode.
I will choose the widest angle lens
that I have on me at the time.
16-35 is perfect, specially for markets or
European cities and a tripod is really
essential for this type of photography.
My aperture - I tend to try to keep
between F16 or F22. I really find
that this is great when you're trying to
get those beautiful light starburst
effect on your photograph that
the smaller the aperture you have the
the more precise that light beam will look.
For shutter speed it will depend on
the subject matter. For the Christmas
markets, I want something maybe around
1 second to 5 seconds and I want to
expose it for the mid-tones or the
mid brightness of the photo.
You'll want to test out your shutter
speeds for this. I find I will take a
variety of shots with different shutter
speeds because I may like a shorter one
versus a longer shutter speed and it
depends on how all the other lights are
working within the frame.
I also find that the best time to do
some of this photography is around
twilight just after the sunset so you
have a little bit of that dark navy blue sky.
It helps bring out the contrast with
the light that's happening in the rest
of your scene so that you don't have a
black backdrop to your sky.
One of my favourite shots I got during my trip was
from the Christmas market in Aachen and
what I loved about the shot was I was
able to get an overhead perspective
of the market.
Luckily for me City Hall was right here
in the centre of the city so I was able
to get in and up to the second floor to
get the shot. I had my camera on the
tripod and then I arranged my settings
so that it would be exposed enough so
that I could pick up the light within
the market but not over expose that.
To make this photo pop even more a lot
of work was actually done in post.
I reduced the shadows
and I upped the ambiance and the vibrancy
of the colours and I played around a
little bit with the white balance just
so I get that nice sort of cool hue,
but still keeping the warmth of the
lights of the Christmas market because
that's really what makes the photo so special.
Shooting video in the winter can
be challenging, particularly if you'd
like to keep your shutter speed at 1/60
and your aperture open for a defocussed background.
Even with ISO 100 I find
shooting on snowy, sunny days to be
impossible without an ND filter.
Some cameras have built-in ND, otherwise
choose from one of two types.
A filter which screws directly onto the lens.
It needs to match the diameter of the lens
this Fuji is 77mm. ND filters
are sold by numbers, corresponding to
reductions in light. An ND8 filter will
reduce light by 3 stops.
ND16 is four stops. There are variable
filters which can be adjusted in the field.
There are also square filters that slide
into holders. This Cokin system has a 72mm
mount and I'm using an
adapter to fit onto this 55mm Nikon lens.
There are adapters available
for all standard lens diameters and the
adapters cost less than filters.
As well, I can use multiple filters. Ror example,
I can add a graduated ND, which is darker
at the top than the bottom - a very useful
option for managing a bright sky.
I hope this inspires you to keep shooting all
winter long.
Thanks for watching. Questions, comments
use the field below. I do read and reply
to all civil and relevant comments.
Now, let me put my snowshoes on for the trek home.