Shoot Perfect Winter Scenes With a £100 Digital Camera

The trap most people fall into (including myself until a short while ago) is that they think it's the latest camera that's going to get them the results they want when in fact it's the technique used and knowing when and where to go out looking for photos.

This is meant as a beginners tutorial, hence the £100 digital camera so I do apologise for anyone who's looking for more advanced tips here.

Exposure settings for winter scenes

One of the main problems in the winter can be the snow, this can trick a camera set to auto mode into thinking the light in the scene is a lot brighter than it actually is which can then make the photo you take very dull and lifeless.

If possible you need to find something in the range of the focus you want that isn't covered in snow or reflecting too much sunlight, hold the shutter half way down to tell the camera these are the settings you want to keep for the photo and then still holding the shutter button half way down re-position the shot to the original scene you wanted to photograph.

This way, with a little bit of practice not only will the brightness in the photo look right but colours should come through better too.

If you're really feeling adventurous you could always try having a play with your cameras exposure settings if they're accessible and try to set snowy scenes to overexpose by a couple of stops, you might even get some 'surprising mistakes'.

ISO settings

Just as a rule of thumb the brighter it is outside the lower ISO settings you can get away with on your camera which in turn means a better quality picture due to reduced noise (the grainy effect you sometimes see on photos), usually shooting on a sunny day you could get away with your lowest ISO settings of 100-200, if it's cloudy then 200-400, and for very dark scenes you could be looking at something like 400-800, try to avoid an ISO setting above 800 as you then start to get noticeable noise on the photo.

Image quality

In this day and age you really don't need to settle for your cameras lowest image quality setting just so you can get more photos onto the camera, you can now get quite high capacity cards from places such as PicStop (who I'd personally recommend) for under £20, sometimes nearly a third less than you'd pay on the high street.

Colour in the scene

Snowy winter Scenes can sometimes carry the feel of a black and white photograph, so maybe try to find something in shot that will add a bit of colour to the picture.

Props to take with you

Some of the best things to take with you on a winter shoot are either pets or your children. Both are really going to enjoy messing about in the snow and provide you with some really great photo opportunities.

It's all in the timing

To get some really stunning winter scenes it helps to get to where you want to take your photos nice and early before sunrise, or alternatively late in the afternoon before sunset. This can also help with photos lacking in colour (mentioned above), where they'll be greatly enhanced by the addition of some strong breaking sunlight which can add to a scene via the different colours the light casts on objects.

Everything has gone foggy

One thing you might notice when you first take your camera out is the lens fogs up, try to resist cleaning it and let it clear naturally over a couple of minutes, this is just the cameras temperature adjusting to the outside temperature, if you wipe the lens you could end up not only smudging it which can be a real pain to remove once it's dried on the lens, but you could also damage the lens.

Suitable Clothing

If you're out in the snow it'd help to wrap up warm and wear some walking boots or suitable footwear otherwise slipping over could not only mean damaging yourself but also your camera. Also if you need to wear gloves try thin ones, as these will help you to control the camera more comfortably.

Keep the batteries warm

Just a quick note about batteries, if they get too cold they can lose their charge quicker than normal, so always try to either keep the batteries warm or if it's a small compact camera keep it inside your coat as much as possible.

There's no substitute for experimenting so why not get out there and start snapping, you could be pleasantly surprised at what you achieve