7 tips for snow photos
Saturday 3 January 2026, 15:30 by Elja Trum | 33,224 views | 11 commentsThis article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.
A wintery world gives you an easy way to take photos you don't get to make every day. Here are seven tips for taking beautiful snow photos over the coming days.
1. Overexpose
A beautiful blanket of white snow will fool your camera's light meter. It won't take the correct reading in these conditions. This often gives you dull, dark photos on a winter's day.
You can easily compensate for this with the exposure compensation on your camera. Set it to +1 to create one stop of overexposure. Use the histogram on your camera to check that you aren't overexposing (or still underexposing). With overexposure, you lose the details in the light areas and
You can still correct things quite well afterwards in Lightroom or another editing programme when you shoot in RAW. You can't recover genuinely overexposed areas this way.
2. White balance
Your camera also often struggles when choosing the white balance for snow photos. The automatic white balance often gives you bluish photos, especially in the shade. When you work in RAW, you can correct this afterwards without any problems (and you can get quite far with Jpeg too), but of course it's even better to choose a white balance setting manually to prevent the blue cast.
3. Get the timing right
Snow looks best when nobody has walked or driven through it yet. So head out early in the morning or look for places where few people go. Also be careful where you walk yourself, before you know it you'll have created the footprints in a potentially beautiful photo!
4. Watch the weather
Keep an eye on the weather forecast too. Not just for when it's going to snow, but especially for when it clears up. Tomorrow will probably be a mostly cloudy day. Saturday morning might therefore be a better time to head out. Clear spells are also expected that day.
You can take the most beautiful snow photos when it has snowed at night and the weather is beautifully (almost) clear in the morning. In the first morning light, the world is truly beautiful.
5. Look for details
A vast snowy landscape is certainly beautiful, but you can also take beautiful snow photos when you don't go far from home. Look for smaller details, such as a twig with snow on it. Combined with a beautiful (blurred) background, you can take beautiful snow photos almost anywhere.
6. Dress warmly
When you head out to take snow photos, it's a good idea to dress properly. A warm coat, scarf and good waterproof shoes are recommended. I prefer to use thinner gloves as well, so you can still operate the camera properly.
Good waterproof trousers or ski trousers keep your legs warm, and also make it easy to sit in the snow to take photos from a low angle. If you're going out for a long time, take a thermos of hot tea with you to warm up with.
Also think about your camera. Snow is ultimately just water, so you need to protect your camera from it. When you go back inside after taking your photos, leave your camera in your camera bag for a while. This lets the camera and your lenses gradually warm up and prevents condensation in places you can't reach.
7. Snow in black and white
Especially on a cloudy day, you soon miss colour in a snow photo. That certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't go out on a cloudy day. A snow photo without colour can work very well too. Try converting a low-colour snow photo to black and white. This puts more emphasis on the structures and shapes.
Een eerdere versie van dit artikel is verschenen op donderdag 6 december 2012, 23:57.
About the author
Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.
You might also like
-
A few tips for photographing in the snowby Nando Harmsen
-
Nature photography tip: Predicting snow with Windyby Rob Dijkstra
-
The best snow photos from our membersby Nando Harmsen
-
Nature photography tip: Discover a new world after sunsetby Rob Dijkstra
-
10 Tips for Applying the Orton Effectby Nando Harmsen
-
10 tips for photographing with a vintage lensby Nando Harmsen
11 comments
-
wim hoppenbrouwers wrote on Friday 7 December 2012 at 12:01 | replybedankt voor deze tips.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.
wim -
Alain wrote on Friday 7 December 2012 at 12:17 | replynog een praktische tip: de accu gaat minder lang mee in dit weer, een evt reserve accu niet in de rugzak of tas bewaren, maar kort bij het lichaam, hoe warmer, hoe meer capaciteit!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet. -
-
ink wrote on Tuesday 11 December 2012 at 11:49 | replywelke instelling gebruik je dan voor je witbalans?
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet. -
corine wrote on Tuesday 11 December 2012 at 20:28 | replybedankt voor de tips, zullen van de winter vast goed van pas komen.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.
ik ben ook benieuwd naar het antwoord op de vraag over witbalansinstelling -
ErikvanRosmalen
wrote on Tuesday 11 December 2012 at 21:13
| reply
Sneeuwfoto's krijgen natuurlijk altijd een wat blauwige tint mee. Als je je witbalans op een Kelvin-waarde zet, kun je die later in Lightroom nog corrigeren, en dan voor al je foto's naar dezelfde waarde. Ik zou dan uitgaan van een witbalans van bijvoorbeeld 5600K. Ietsje aan de warme kant, maar dan compenseer je ook voor de blauwzweem. Al wil je die ook niet helemaal kwijt, aangezien dat ook weer onnatuurlijk oogt. Kortom, in Raw fotograferen, zodat je WB altijd nog kunt bijstellen!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet. -
Kiezel wrote on Tuesday 11 December 2012 at 21:16 | replyVoor de witbalans maak ik gebruik van een half-doorlatende lensdop met een wit stuk plastic erin. Daarmee maak ik een aangepaste witbalans. Of een foto van een grijskaart in mijn witte landschap. Dan kan ik achteraf de kleur nog corrigeren.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet. -
Robbie Fotografie wrote on Wednesday 12 December 2012 at 22:03 | replyzitten leuke tips bij, alleen die thermoskan zie ik niet zo zitten, die zal door de vorst klappen....neem een rvs stalen binnenkant....nu weer wachten op een mooi pak sneeuw en idd, zaterdagmorgen was prachtig met op de velden een sneeuwmist net boven de grond....
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet. -
-
eduardvanmil
wrote on Thursday 10 January 2013 at 17:53
| reply
Mooie tips nu de winter na een maand van dit artikel weer terugkeert.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.
Ik vraag mij af of HDR ook een oplossing is voor onder overbelichten, met een pola natuurlijk maar eventueel ook met een ND filter?
Heeft iemand daar ervaring mee, bv op een 5D MK III?
Ook veel fotoplezier de komende weken, het ziet er naar uit dat we van die grijskaart af zijn!
-
guest wrote on Tuesday 6 January 2026 at 12:47 | reply
White balance on shade works perfectly fine for me
Translated from Dutch.
Have your say
Please note: Articles older than a week can only be commented on by signed-in visitors.Would you still like to comment? sign in or create a free account.
Elja Trum
Photofacts; everything to do with photography!
Would you like to take better photos and keep up with what is happening in photography? Photofacts publishes articles that teach you something about photography — from a product announcement to a practical shooting tip or a look at a website. Photofacts covers photography every day and is a hobby project of Elja Trum's that got out of hand. The articles are written by a team of volunteer authors. If you would enjoy writing one or more articles for Photofacts, do get in touch.More about PhotofactsPhotofacts is made possible in part by
