Wednesday 22 December 2010

Snow photography is difficult!

Lots of bloggers in the UK and elsewhere have been photographing snow scenes recently (particularly those who live near our beloved Heathrow airport, maybe??)

I have done a bit of this myself, and I conclude that it is not as easy as it seems at first sight. Getting your camera to focus on the right thing when everything is uniformly monochrome is a challenge. So is achieving the right light level. Have a look at these two photos which demonstrate this point.

The first one is "all wrong" in terms of light level (who has ever seen blue snow?) - though I believe it actually shows the subject matter quite nicely.

Who ever said that pigeons are indecisive?


The second one is more technically correct, but the footprints stand out much less.




I recently posted an arty shot of snow on the roof-tiles making an attractive regular pattern



But you didn't see the contortions I had to go through (hanging out of the bedroom window) to get the shot, which I later cropped.




I also wanted an artistic shot of my long-suffering Tundra cabbages beginning to peek through the thawing snow, but my camera insisted on focussing on the netting that covers them. Nice close-up study of the net though, showing its weave...



I've been trying to get a photo that shows off the beautiful colours of the Dogwood stems, and I thought a snowy background might be appropriate. I've taken a fair few photos, trying (without success) to get one I'm happy with, and now the snow is thawing so my opportunity is fast disappearing. This next photo is the best of the bunch though I'm not really proud of it. I am proud of the Dogwood though - there are stems in every conceivable shade of red, yellow and orange, but the red brick wall in the background makes them hard to appreciate. [BTW: I love that brick wall. It gives me privacy from the road that lies the other side of it!]




Here's evidence that the bulbs are keen to get started. These are dwarf Narcissi "Tete-a-Tete", coming up around the base of my Crab Apple tree. They don't seem to mind the really cold conditions.



I also wanted to show you this next photo. If you have been following my blog you will already have seen a close-up from this sequence - with the cat's footprints highlighted in the gap. In this other photo you can see exactly what that gap is -- it is a "cat-door" that I cut in the bottom of our back gate some years ago when our cats were getting too old to be able to climb over it!



Here's a picture of one of the little dears - Charlie:

Whew - getting through that cat-gate was hard work!

7 comments:

  1. Maybe your new camera will have a snow setting Mark - both mine do. The focussing is a problem though especailly auto focussing. Often a bit of tweaking in Photoshop is needed.

    The bird must have ben playing 'here we go round the mulberry bush' or 'ring a ring a roses'

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  2. We have two cats - one of a stay-at-home version, the other a go-out-and-explore version. When the snow first arrived, the latter left the first footprints in our street - straight off for open ground and an explore.

    Happy Christmas.

    Esther

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  3. You are right that there are lots of snow photos from the UK blogs, I'm not sure if you are all loving the cold (it's in the news here every day) but I am loving the photos. I hadn't thought about it being hard to photograph snow. Perhaps the Australian equivalent would be sand? If it ever stops raining here I will take the boys and the camera to the beach and try.

    On another note, for both you and Esther, our family is getting a kitten for Christmas. I have always been a dog person, so I am a little unsure of how to look after this creature, but I am hoping it will be nice to have a little fluffball around.

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  4. I am so happy to hear that someone else is having difficulty with their camera. I was a pro on my 35mm manual and could get it to do exactly what I wanted. My husband got me a really good digital camera a couple of weeks ago for my birthday. I just can't get it to do what I want it to. I think that I'm going to take a class on how to use it. You should be able to get the camera to focus on the cabbage and not the net in that photo...I'm sure after a lot of practice both of us will figure it out.

    Love that photo of your cat!!

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  5. I like your Dogwood very much, it is beautiful! I can imagine the colors when the sunshine hits them.

    On the topic of camera, in my experience, practice and more practice is the only way. And then, out of a hundred shots, one will be good enough. All my camera settings are on "manual", nothing on "auto", so this helps me to learn a lot about focus, shutter speed and other crazy stuff.

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  6. Love your dogwoods! Auto focus can be a real pain. My camera has a setting that allows me to switch to a point focus rather than a matrix focus, which makes selecting what you want in focus easier. Your new DSLR will make all this really easy, once you get round the controls. Love the cat door! Have a lovely Christmas.

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  7. i'M ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO SET THE CAMERA ON THE SETTING "SMART" AND HOPE FOR THE BEST!
    LOVE YOUR CAT WHO SEEMS CONTENT TO JUST BE INSIDE--I THINK SNOW WOULD MAKE ME FEEL THE SAME, TOO. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.

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