GEAR
1. Dress appropriately for the occasion.
This goes without saying but remember dressing for 32-degree weather is not the same as dressing for 0-degree weather. Do not over-dress, it is better to feel a slight chill while standing rather than overheating while walking. Take gloves, wear a thin pair of gloves for use while photographing and take a pair of mittens to slip on in between shooting.
2. Keep your camera cold.
Have you ever noticed how glasses instantly fog when coming into warmth after being out in the cold? This easily can happen to your camera, fogging the mirror and causing harmful condensation inside the lens. Do not make the mistake of placing your camera under your coat to keep it warm. The warmth of your body and moisture from sweet can be potentially harmful.
3. Keep your batteries warm.
Nothing drains batteries faster than the cold, keep extra batteries in a pocket or inside your coat close to your body heat. Once a battery drains place exchange it with a fresh one and place in inside the pocket, once the battery warms it can be used again until fully discharged.
4. Keep gear readily accessible.
You do not want to be fueling around a bag or drooping equipment in the snow. You do not wan to be setting your bag down in the snow and getting it saturated with water.
TECHNIQUES
5. Shoot RAW.
I always shoot RAW, this gives you the greatest flexibility in post-production and let you easily fix problems that would be harder, if not impossible to correct shooting in JPEG.
6. Be aware of your footprints.
Keep in mind your intended shoot, you do not want to walk through an area that you want to include in your composition.
7. Use your camera's Manual Mode.
Snow is bright and will affect your camera's internal light meter. If use AUTO or APERTURE PRIORITY/SHUTTER PRIORITY it will result in dark images since the camera is reading all bright light reflected from the snow and compensating accordingly. You can overcome this imbalance by either adjusting the EV compensation or metering for a dark object by pressing the shutter halfway and then moving the camera, with the shutter still halfway depressed, to reframe and capture your shot.
8. Slightly overexpose your images for whiter snow.
While snow will look white to the human eye, often snow in a photography will have a blue tint or look grayed out. If you have a gray card, you can use it to set a custom white balance. If not you can give the photos a little more light than necessary, if it is too bright you can tone it down in Lightroom or Aperture later.
9. Use your camera's histogram.
The LCD display on your camera will not show the most accurate brightness of the snow. Use the histogram to determine what actual exposure your camera is getting.
10. How to get rid of falling snow.
When shooting in falling snow, the snow flakes closer to the camera have a tendency to detract from the image. You can eliminate this is to use a tripod, decrease the ISO, increase your aperture and shoot with a longer shutter speed. The snowflakes will not have enough time to be captured as they are falling.
11. You want to capture the falling snow.
Sometimes you want to capture the falling snow. To get the best shot, consider using a telephoto lens, 70mm and up. For the best conditions use a 200mm lens and shoot at a shallow aperture (f/4-f/6). Set up with the fastest shutter speed you can (1/400th of a second or faster). This will create an effect where the snowflakes right in front and right behind the focus point appear to be larger.
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12. Warm up your camera slowly.
The best way to eliminate the possibility if condensation is to place your gear back in it's bag before bringing it in and allowing it to sit for a while before opening it back up. This allows the camera to warm slowly up to room temperature, just be sure you remove the memory card before going inside.
13. Drying your camera.
If your camera ever gets wet, bring it indoors, then wrap a dry town around it. Let it set for several hours. If you try to wipe the snow or water off, you run the risk of pushing it inside the seams where the electronic components are. Just let the camera sit and let the towel absorb all the moisture.
