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8 Responses to "Flint in the Snow"

1. | Reply Buzz Andersen
   Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 2:06am #
   

   Snow is problematic because camera light meters are all designed with one principle in mind: that a "normal" scene in nature reflects 18% of the light cast on it. Because of this, they all try to average the scene out to 18% gray. Normally this works fine, but where it breaks down is if you have a scene that doesn't average out to 18% gray--i.e. a scene that is either very white or very black. When your camera sees a big snowbank, all it's thinking is that it needs to make all of that white gray, when in actuality it should be white.

   This is why photographers sometimes use a gray card. They take the meter reading off something that *is* 18% gray and that sets the light meter correctly for the current light levels. Another technique I use is to take the meter reading off something that is closer to normal, lock the exposure (by pressing the button down partly), and then recompose the picture. The only problem with this is that on most automatic cameras, locking the exposure also locks the focus. So sometimes this can throw off your autofocus. You can also use the camera's exposure compensation to get around this problem.

   Phew--there's what I know about the snow problem...

2. | Reply Jonas Salling
   Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 3:24am #
   

   Luminous Landscape have some great tutorials and an interesting "Understanding..." series:

   http://www.luminous-landscape.com/

3. | Reply Etan
   Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 11:10am #
   

   You can also try out Jodies Coston's Free Online Photography Course.

4. | Reply Arcterex
   Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 1:07pm #
   

   Check out http://www.morguefile.com/

5. | Reply Arcterex
   Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 1:07pm #
   

   Specifically http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php

6. | Reply Alex Eiser
   Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 1:11pm #
   

   You can try the Olympus Lessons.. but they are probably too basic for your needs.

7. | Reply kdf
   Posted 20 Feb 2005 at 11:13am #
   

   The luminous landscape has some great articles.

   There is a really good one on exposure that talks about using grey cards and digital cameras.

   Basically grey cards (mid tones) are great for film cameras but digital works better if you set your exposure for the highlights

   Expose (to the) Right

8. | Reply David
   Posted 21 Feb 2005 at 5:56pm #
   

   weird. I had a weimaraner too. He died a few years back though, and I am in school now... so no dog.

   My pup was named Rommel.