Metering in a snowstorm?

[Calamity Jane]

We had our first snowfall of the year yesterday, a REAL heavy dump of the white stuff (6" in two hours). Since I stayed home from work ("snow day"! WAHOO!), I was looking at the scene outside my window and was REALLY tempted to shoot it on an 8x10 transparency but realized I didn't have the foggiest idea how to meter it!

The scene:

Very, VERY dark, like late evening - heavy leaden overcast, no sign of where the sun was, no shadows, not even a lighter area of clouds.

HEAVY snow in the air, big fluffy wet snowflakes close together - visibility a couple hundred feet - would have been nice to catch on film.

The background was mostly white snow with a few really dark items with snow on top.

There was nothing in the scene even approaching grey - 95% white, subdued light, and 5% black in deep shadows.

Obviously a nice picture would have required a lot more exposure than an incident meter would indicate but less than a spotmeter would read on the black shadows.

The lighting conditions and combination of extreme lights/darks was so far out of my experience that I didn't shoot it.

How would you have approached the speed/aperature selection problem?

[John Cook]

Jane, the short professional answer is to keep detailed notes over the years so you can repeat something which worked in the past. There is nothing less productive than re-inventing the wheel with every assignment.

The (very personal) more technical response would be to open up from the sunny sixteen rule between three to five stops (?), depending upon your judgement of the cloud density and time of day.

Contrary to the Zone System boys, I see no need to carry 10 or more stops of shadow detail. It is neither necessary nor natural-looking to have full detail in the fur of a black cat under a parked car.

So, like urban night photography, I would concentrate on the highlights and let the deep shadows just go. No spot meter.

Speaking of highlights, without the sun you will have no Key Light. So a blizzard tends to photograph flat - just like it looks. Not sure I would mess with that, for fear of making the thing look too phoney and manipulated. Let the digital folks do that. (My idea of “image sharpening” is a stronger loupe.)

Still, a key light is real nice to have. My personal preference would be to wait for dusk and shoot under a strong street light. Just don't let it get between the camera and the subject, for fear of white-out.

As for the exposure in that case, I refer you to my first paragraph about notes. That street light in front of City Hall has been the same brightness for years. No need to meter it every time you walk by.

The only other tidbit I can pass along is that someone once told me that human vision works at about a 1/15th of a second. So if you want to photograph a table fan (spinning blades) or snow falling and have it look natural, that shutter speed will neither freeze the action nor unnecessarily blur it.

Last tip: a test is always nice. ;0)

[Bill_1856]

CJ, you "stayed home from work;" does this mean that you have a real day job? Anyhow, I would have stuck my digital camera out the window (set on Program) and bracket and fired away. Then chimped the results and repeated the process based on the previous results until I had the right stuff. What kind of a hell-hole has snow in early October, anyhow?

[ronald moravec]

An incident meter will handle all this just fine. You might under expose to preserve the darkness.

[Alan Davenport]

CJ, remember that the goal of calculating an exposure is to place the important parts of the image in the linear range of the film's response. With transparencies, you have a five stop range; middle gray +/- 2 stops. So, if you want snow to be white, but with some detail still visible, you meter the brightest part of the snow, and open 2 stops from the meter reading. Works every time.

[Mike Kovacs]

Also, chances are you will not record snowflakes in mid air as anything other than a fog. What I have seen done is to use a flash to capture snowfall in mid air, close to the camera, when that effect is desired.

[Eric Fredine]

The light in these kinds of conditions is very flat so I think you'd find the contrast range would have been easily captured on transparency film. For transparencies I shoot Astia and in snowy conditions I just meter the snow and open up 2 and 1/3 stops. Easier than metering in without the snow! And I suspect incident metering would have been just fine too.

[James E Galvin]

I would do as I usually do, place shadows at zone 2 or 2.5, and see were the highest highlight fell. If past zone 8 or so, the scene's range exceeds the film's: no go. If not, shoot. In doubt, shoot a polaroid, if that is good, transparency has a little wider range, should be fine. You have a scene with a large range, but maybe saved by the fog's filling in the shadows some. I found it useful to plot the film's curve, by shooting a greyscale card, so I know were the top and bottom of the film fall on my lightmeter.

[Calamity Jane]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I'll keep notes for next time.

Bill,
Yes, I have a day job, and it pays REAL money to ;-) Otherwise I couldn't afford LF!

Hell-hole? Well, this IS Canada after all. Everybody from the Rocky Mountains to northern Ontario got the snow in the past 2 days. On the bright side, the winter weather keeps the riff-raff away - well, except for me :-)

[Mike Kovacs]

Funny, its been mid to high 20's (Celcius) here in southern Ontario all week!