Regarding D90 metering problem

BillinAnchorage

New member
Every photo book I've ever read or class I've taken or my past film experience has all agreed on this idea. A camera light meter thinks white is 18% gray. So that being said you must over expose your "snow" shots up to 1 or 1.5 stops. That use to work for me. Same is said for black but in the other direction. Right? Right! My D90 doesn't think like that in the snow. With no EV compensation it blows the hell out of the snow. I have to -1 to -2 stops to not blow everything out.

Saturday I went snow machining with some friends most of my photos were waayyy over exposed. I know HISTOGRAM. But my hands were freezing because it was -5F. This picture kind of came out ok. Just a little frustrated when old "rules" don't apply anymore. I know ... check my metering accuracy .. Sunny 16 ... RAW .. (can fix in raw if its blown out though) ..... yada yada yada .. LOL

This is Denali by the way.
 

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Browncoat

Senior Member
There are a lot of factors that come into play when photographing snow. Mostly, the fudge factor. It's a juggling act between WB adjustments, stopping down, and even ISO. The amount of shadows, time of day, lens used, even the type of snow can affect your settings. Start with +1 EV and go from there...and yes, use your histogram as a guide.

If you can figure out a catch-all for snow photography, you'll have a best seller on your hands.
 

Joseph Bautsch

New member
Agreed. Photographers have complained for years that Nikon's AE overexposes by about one stop anyway. So in shots like this adding any where from one to two stops should improve the exposure. Did you have the WB set on auto? For white balance in snow shots I usually put it on shade to add some warm color to offset the blue.
 
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