ART Blizzard Pics/Vids...

[6SpeedTA95]

Well guys we had a blizzard here in the Tulsa area. Not something we get very often. My town officially has 19 inches of snow and its still snowing. I apologize up front for the quality on some of these pics as all the pics of the front of the house were taken from inside the house through a rather dirty/foggy window.

The pics out back were taken outside but the snow is blowing so hard/fast that flakes were raping my lens.

Thoughts/recommendations on how to shoot better with all this snow would be appreciated. I'm finding it tough to pick out the details in the drifts...could just be a product of shooting through the front window, etc...but any tips are welcomed.

First the vids (I'm only including links cause I assume you guys will want to watch in HD anyways)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSmbhwuuzXQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jkr0lbalO8

 

[Marix]

They're all underexposed (the snow is grey) and also slightly pink imo. Snow is meant to be white, and this confuses the meter in your camera which thinks it is overexposing and then compensates.

And yes they also lack clarity which is from shooting through a window

Best bet is manual mode. I'd go for small aperture, low sensitivity and a longer shutter speed to get some streaks of the falling snow.

Or you could use S mode and set exposure compensation to +0.7 or +1.0 and see how it goes.

And make sure the snow is going over a nice contrasted background. You can see the snow much better against dark objects than you can against lighter objects or pale brickwork.

That is some crazy deep snow though!

 

[6SpeedTA95]

They're all underexposed (the snow is grey) and also slightly pink imo. Snow is meant to be white, and this confuses the meter in your camera which thinks it is overexposing and then compensates.

And yes they also lack clarity which is from shooting through a window

Best bet is manual mode. I'd go for small aperture, low sensitivity and a longer shutter speed to get some streaks of the falling snow.

Or you could use S mode and set exposure compensation to +0.7 or +1.0 and see how it goes.

And make sure the snow is going over a nice contrasted background. You can see the snow much better against dark objects than you can against lighter objects or pale brickwork.

That is some crazy deep snow though!

I'm actually doing all that already...aperture between 18 and as high as 36, when I slow the shutter speed down to 1/15 or 1/20 the snow in a lot of cases disappears...I guess cause its moving so fast, instead the image just looks a tiny bit soft...shutter speeds of 20 to 30 looked kinda weird...not really "streaky" just blurry...50 to 80 seems to be the best shutter speed.

...any thoughts on how to get the whitebalance correct? Thats what is really kicking my ass, initially the snow was kind of a light grey...now it has a bit of a tinge to it as you said, I could go for auto white balance and try that? But so far i've tried to shoot in daylight, cloudy and shade...shade seems to look the best overall but provided the resulting tinge you mentioned.

 

[Wobistdu]

i always shoot falling snow at like f/5.6. tight apertures get way too much snow in the pics

you def gotta go at least +.7 - +1 to make the snow white

 

[Wobistdu]

white balance isn't making the snow gray... it's your exposure. bump it up and you'll see

 

[Marix]

I'm actually doing all that already...aperture between 18 and as high as 36, when I slow the shutter speed down to 1/15 or 1/20 the snow in a lot of cases disappears...I guess cause its moving so fast, instead the image just looks a tiny bit soft...shutter speeds of 20 to 30 looked kinda weird...not really "streaky" just blurry...50 to 80 seems to be the best shutter speed.

Yup - 1/50 to 1/80 probably is about right. But it's about getting enough contrast between the snow and background.

Alternatively you could try something fancy with flash or strobing flash if you have one which is capable...

...any thoughts on how to get the whitebalance correct? Thats what is really kicking my ass, initially the snow was kind of a light grey...now it has a bit of a tinge to it as you said, I could go for auto white balance and try that? But so far i've tried to shoot in daylight, cloudy and shade...shade seems to look the best overall but provided the resulting tinge you mentioned.

You'll solve a lot of the colour issues by just getting the exposure right. Once the snow gets closer to white, it won't look so red/pink.

 

[Marix]

Also, you'll want to add some blacks back into the images during PP

 

[FryingPan]

So that's why people move down to Florida. It's 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky right now.

 

[Enigma]

This isht sucks.

 

[6SpeedTA95]

i always shoot falling snow at like f/5.6. tight apertures get way too much snow in the pics

you def gotta go at least +.7 - +1 to make the snow white

Thanks for the tips guys, I've used your .7 to 1 as a reference and reshot a few of them...problem is a lot of the details seem to get washed out...shooting through the window probably doesn't help...at all

What does knocking the aperture down to 5.6 do? I thought that would drastically impact the depth of field? In this case make it shallower?

 

[6SpeedTA95]

This isht sucks.

Tulsa crew

 

[Wobistdu]

What does knocking the aperture down to 5.6 do? I thought that would drastically impact the depth of field? In this case make it shallower?

if it's actively snowing, a wider aperture focused at infinity = less falling snow in the picture = cleaner picture

 

[6SpeedTA95]

if it's actively snowing, a wider aperture focused at infinity = less falling snow in the picture = cleaner picture

Ahhh ok cool, I'll take a few more in a 30 or 40 mins...

 

[Wobistdu]

shot these last year during a snow storm. my processing sucked a year ago, so looking at these hell i could have done better in LR

but it was snowing like a bastard in these pics. i didn't want 60,000 flakes in the picture

 

[Cesium]

Hey 6speed, can you resize your pics to something more net-frinedly? I have decent monitors at work but it'd be nice if they fit on just ONE of them..

 

[6SpeedTA95]

shot these last year during a snow storm. my processing sucked a year ago, so looking at these hell i could have done better in LR

but it was snowing like a bastard in these pics. i didn't want 60,000 flakes in the picture

 

[tetsuo]

kc crew here, but i think we are in the same blizzard as you guys we don't have as much snow because last night it was all fucking ice that came down. i have 1/4" of ice under 8-10" of snow on my driveway.

 

[6SpeedTA95]

Hey 6speed, can you resize your pics to something more net-frinedly? I have decent monitors at work but it'd be nice if they fit on just ONE of them..

Oh...sorry, I assumed everyone except me on OT had blingy ass shit

I can't view them all on mine either...yes I'll step the links down a size...

 

[MSIGuy]

Meh, that's no blizzard, just a little bit of light snow!

Here's the forecast today for where I'm at.

Mostly sunny. High around -5 (f). Northwest wind 10-15 mph. Windchill around -30f.

For tonight: Mostly clear. Lows around -25 (f). Windchill around -45 (f) after midnight.

 

[AbortionSurvivor]

damnit. I was hoping to find Blizzcon pics.

 

[6SpeedTA95]

Ok guys, these next few should be over exposed 2/3 or a full stop...

Ok now check out these last two...first one with WB as cloudy, the second with WB as "shade"

 

[Bob]

go outside..

 

[Girth]

damn, thats a lot of snow!

 

[6SpeedTA95]

damn, thats a lot of snow!

You should see it in person...absolutely unreal...we had officially 20 inches here where I live but the wind has blown it into huge drifts.

I'll go outside tomorrow when the wind dies down some.

on a sidenote some dudes thought they were awesome in their trucks (they both live down the street)...both are AWD or 4WD and they're both stuck right in front of my house

 

[Wobistdu]

exposure is down. i think i like the 1st wb better, but i always shoot AWB and use light room to fix it.

now work on composition and framing