09/01/2026
In many parts of Britain, we're in a snowy landscape and will be getting out to grab some shots before is all disappears. It's not an option outside our office... only a brief flurry has arrived in the last week despite ice and cold.
The question you may ask is - how should I exposed for snow scenes on digital cameras? The usual advice is based on old books which repeat even older info about meter calibration.
Cameras with modern TTL/off-sensor exposure measurement have not been calibrated to 18% grey for many years. Most TTL metering systems use the 12% grey which Kodak and others researched in the 1970s to more accurately reflect the average tone values of scenes and the use of reversal films like Ektachrome. It's about a 2/3 stop difference. However, they kept the so-called 18% grey card (it never has been exactly 18%) because it works for flat artwork copying and negative films like Vericolor - and all BW negative.
Despite bad advice 20 years ago about 'expose to the right' based on 8-bit digital capture (later 10-bit, then 12, then 14 for popular DSLRs) and then-poor low bit (shadow) noise levels, raw capture today with all the higher end sensors may benefit from what looks like underexposure, corrected in raw conversion. For JPEGs in-camera you do need to keep exposure as generous as you can without clipping (burning out) the brightest white highlights.
The fly in the ointment remains the monitor, its factory calibration and its profile, combined with lighting in the workspace. Even the best can not make our eyes able to see the high bit range, the white/texture/detail in snow. For fine art prints, look at the histogram, sample white and highlights, reprofile the printer/paper, and even make small test prints. For Facebook or web? Just check on your phone or your laptop.
This is snow and ice on the river, and a straight auto exposure using the OM-5 with 40-150mm lens, iso200, was 1/25s at f/8. The raw file needed + exposure to bring the white up to where the values of RGB are all above 220. The red square indicates the point where the values are reading off from. Pure white should have values around 250-250-250 but most screens, and printers, can't differentiate values between 240 and 255. The auto white balance for this shows 8600K, because most of the light comes from a sky with some blue and some cloud. Using Daylight WB produces a very cold bluish result and that, of course, is what daylight slide film would have recorded. As adjusted here, a print has just enough detail in the snow to reveal 3D shape without looking grey. The screen shot has gone through whatever the MacBook Pro 14" screen does with values, how Photoshop opens a .PNG screenshot and converts the built-in monitor profile, and finally how Photoshop exports to JPEG with sRGB profile, how Facebook compresses this, followed by however your own screen sees the result. Full now scenes... even more difficult to retain some detail and not just show 'pure white out' wherever there is snow.
