How To Photograph Snow (and have it come out white!)

Because snow reflects so much light, it can confuse the sensor in your camera, and makes it difficult to get the right exposure, often leading to flat, dull, grey images. That snow was white when you were there – right?

Exposure compensation is your friend

Your camera expects the average exposure of your photo to be 18% grey, so when faced with a lot of really bright, white snow, it under-exposes by 1 – 2 stops, to bring the overall exposure back to what it expects.

To correct for the sensor under-exposing, use your exposure compensation control, to over-expose the scene by 1 – 2 stops, and your snow will come out looking white, instead of a dull grey.

Check the picture and histogram once you’ve taken the shot, to see if you have got it right.

If your camera has exposure bracketing, you may want to turn this on, so that you get a shot both over and under-exposed, either side of your settings.

I would always recommend shooting in RAW mode too – you can do a certain amount of exposure compensation back on your computer. But always try to get it right in camera, if possible.

Snow scene shot using evaluative metering and no exposure compensation

Snow scene shot using evaluative metering and +1 ev exposure compensation

White Balance

If you have set your camera to use auto white balance, then your snow may have a blue color cast to it when you view the image. This is caused by the snow reflecting the sky.

To correct this, you need to set the correct white balance for your conditions. You can do this either by choosing a fixed setting that your camera provides (such as “sunny” or “cloudy”), or by setting a custom white balance. This is usually done by taking a photograph of the snow, so that the color that should be white takes up most of the central area of the image, then choosing “custom white balance” from the camera’s menu system and choosing the photo you have just taken (check your camera manual for the exact procedure on your model).

The camera now knows that the snow should be white, and sets the white balance accordingly.

If you didn’t set your camera up with the correct white balance, don’t panic! As long as you shot in RAW, you can change the white balance in a program such as Photoshop. You will be able to pick from a list of preset values (again, “sunny”, “cloudy”, etc.) or use a color-picker tool (an eye-drop shaped icon) in the white balance settings to pick the snow as your white point.

Snow photo using auto white balance - notice the blue color cast

Snow photo with the white balance corrected - no blue color cast!