Settings/PP for shooting in snow

I am a bit of a skiing nut and like to combine some shooting with skiing. All the whiteness does tend to throw cameras into a bit of a tizzy so you get problems with under exposure, white balance etc. I recently took my K7 for its first outing and I am having some trouble in post production getting the colours right.

the following isn't too bad but is maybe a little blue



this one is far too blue



the problem I find is that if I reduce the blue tones, the snow takes on a yellow hint which is also unwanted.

Any top tips? I am shooting raw and doing PP on Aperture so I'd hope to be able to fix this stuff reasonably well if I can find the right settings. Any hints on how to set the camera up for optimum results without PP would be very welcome too.

Cheers

Try Cloudy and Shade white balance settings. This should take out the blue.

Thanks, John. I will give that a try. My only concern is that the yellowness will creep in

You've a white balance picker, just click on something that's neutral.. for example the snow and it will turn into white.

What you say is true Stefan, but sometimes the result of that can be too severe.

You can always add a little blue to taste with either the WB tool or filter.

buy some thin wool ( real wool) gloves to wear as liners for your regular gloves/mitts.... bring your Kodak grey card with you when shopping for glove liners.... find a nice thin pair of wool glove liners that happen to match as closely as possible, your grey card..... when out in the snow, take a spot meter reading off your glove liner and set your color balance while you're at it.....

I almost always have a scarf or mitts or toque in the "Right" color..... for exactly this reason.... but then I only shoot manual when the situation calls for precision....

(two benifits of wool? synthetics can give weird ir or uv color casts, and wool stays warm even when it gets wet...)

Ah but the light meter doesn't measure for 18% grey though that the Kodak card is, the standard actually is 12.3%


This the instruction that's with the kodak grey cards these days.

Meter readings of the gray card should be adjusted as follows-
1) For subjects of normal reflectance increase the indicated exposure by 1/2 stop.
2) For light subjects use the indicated exposure; for very light subjects decrease exposure by 1/2 stop
3) If the subject is dark to very dark increase the indicated exposure by 1 to 1.5 stops

Don - that is a nice idea! Thanks

I've once heard a tip that you could take a reading of the shadow you cast on the snow to get a close enough reading.
Not sure if it's works though...

true, but metering off something that is consistent is key, and the kodak grey card does result in the "meter to the right of the histogram" notion of image capture.... your RAW files are usually good.... that is my experience anyways....

Just remember do not eat the yellow snow

Very true.
However you're not correct with meter to the right though, you actually need to over expose with the gray card to get the correct exposure so your meter is to far to the left in the histogram.

So you underexpose with a gray card not overexpose.
For the snow it might actually be good though that it underexpose with that 1/2 of a stop.

correct you are.... I'm a lil absent minded sometimes...lol! I forget sometimes that I set up some presets in aperture for processing my raw files then I just shoot out of habit, seldom having to deviate from what works...

I'm also not very technical either.
In most situations i shoot in manual, press the green button to take a metering, take one photo and look at the histogram and adjust and take a photo again.
Once the exposure is like i want it i leave it like that for as long as i can, it might mean that the shadows goes completely black or that i clip the highlights but since every photo is taken with the same exposure the serrie looks good though.
Only when i enter another light condition i repeat the process.

Av and such modes are useful to use but i rather known what's going on with the photo without having too look at the LCD on the back constantly.
Most of my photos i see for the first time when i get back home, always an surprise which ones are good. You always have a feeling of some good captures of a moment and you're just hoping the photo will be good.