Winter found its way! January 13, 2012 and Buffalo got its snow. No, it's not the first snow of the season, but probably the first real snow that will stay around for more than a day or two. It's definitely the latest start I remember. And it was about time. My intuition has been plotting winter plans for quite a while and there was nowhere to execute them. The surrounding grayness has been rather uninspiring. We've got the white now!

Now that the landscape has turned white, don't forget to set your camera right. Don't let the full auto mode turn all of your photos gray. Snow looks good white, not gray. If you use a point and shoot, find the snow mode and use it, your snow should look much better. If you use a camera without a snow / winter mode, go with exposure compensation or manual mode. Most places will recommend exposure compensation but I find it tricky to use since it's difficult to guess whether to go for +0.7, or up to +1.7. Yes, with experience, you can guess based on how much white area is in your frame but any time you zoom in or out or change your composition, you may need to change your compensation level.

The manual mode may be your best bet. If you want to keep things simple and don't have a gray card around, start with an aperture and shutter speed that will indicate about +1.0, take a test shot, check the histogram and the photo on your LCD, and adjust as needed. Once the photo looks good and your histogram is mostly on the right, but not chopped off, leave it and you're set. Unless the ambient light changes you should not need to change your exposure.

If you have a gray card, set your exposure off of it and you're set.

Have fun!