Metering People in the Snow

Kristina in the Snow

Kristina in the Snow

The white snow in a winter scene can and often does fool a camera meter into underexposing a portrait, so here are the steps to take to get the right exposure. I throw in a few portrait suggestions too.

This is the second article in an ongoing series on winter photography.

It would be especially helpful if you read Metering Daytime Winter Scenes if you haven’t already. The principles in that article apply to this one.

Metering People in the Snow

Metering people in the snow is a lot like Metering Wildlife in the Snow. Just like a wildlife portrait, you bias the exposure for the person, not the snow. But it is simpler because you can walk right up to the person to meter their face and you usually can’t (and probably shouldn’t) walk up to the wildlife.

Kristian, Metering Area.

Metering Area

The first step is to zoom in with your lens or walk up to the person and meter just the skin of their face. That way the camera meter isn’t fooled by the snow, or by the tonality of the clothes the person is wearing, or by the tonality of their hair.

Second, use exposure compensation (which is part of this Reflected Light Meter article) to allow for the tonality of their skin. For a person with light to very light toned skin (like Kristina in the photo above), add one half to one stop of light to the camera meter reading (+1/2 or +1 exposure compensation). For a person with medium toned skin, go with the meter reading provided by the camera. For a person with dark to very dark toned skin, subtract one half to one stop of light from the camera meter reading (-1/2 or -1 exposure compensation). Just push the shutter button down half way to meter and spin the correct dial to adjust the numbers on your camera’s exposure compensation scale.

Once you have arrived at the right exposure setting, “lock in” those setting on your camera so they don’t change when you back up to take the picture. Different cameras have different ways of locking in (holding) an exposure setting so check your camera manual. I usually prefer to shoot in manual mode. In manual mode the exposure settings are locked in (won’t change) until up choose to change it.

With the exposure locked in, back up, compose your photo, and take the picture. The snow might be “burned out” (a washed out, featureless white), but that doesn’t matter when your subject fills most of the frame. To keep the background from burning out, see the suggestion below.

Portrait Suggestions

Doing portraits in the winter works best when you have the soft light (and soft shadows) of a cloudy bright day. A perfect day has just enough clouds to soften shadows but not too many clouds to make things dark and gloomy. Soft light makes for great looking skin. If it is a sunny day, do not have your subject face the sun (except at sunrise and sunset when the light is softened by atmospheric haze). Harsh sunlight on the face is usually not very flattering.

There was a little bit of light from the setting sun peeking through the clouds when I took this photo, so I had Kristina turn away from the sun to keep the light soft on her face. I also had her stand in a location where there was no sunlight on the background snow and trees but still allow some sunlight to back light the hood of her jacket. That did two things, it gave the hood some “pop” against the background, but kept the background from burning out. Sometimes moving your subject just a few feet relative to the background makes a big difference in the quality of the image.

The lower light levels of an overcast day usually means boosting the ISO to 200, 400, or higher so you can set your chosen aperture and still have a reasonably fast shutter speed. Use the lowest ISO setting that will give you the shutter speed you need.

Backing up from your subject and using longer focal lengths (80mm and longer) gives a natural look to the face. For the photo above I used a 100-300mm zoom lens at a focal length of 95 mm. This focal length gave me a pleasing perspective for her face. Longer lenses are also useful for softening the background. Getting close to someone with a wide angle lens distorts the features of the face.

I used an aperture of f/5.6 to soften the background but still have enough depth of field for the features of her face and the hood of her jacket. A smaller aperture would make the background sharper than I preferred for this photo. I wanted the trees to look soft and blurry.

When I zoomed in on her face to meter, the camera recommended a shutter speed around 1/100 second at an aperture of f/5.6. I added a stop of light by changing the shutter speed to 1/50 second. This is normally too slow a shutter speed for a lens of this focal length, but the lens has an image stabilization (IS) feature for hand holding the camera and lens at longer shutter speeds. Without the IS feature on the lens, I would need a shutter speed of 1/100 second with an ISO of 800 or 1/200 second with an ISO of 1600. The slower ISO of 400 gives me a cleaner, less noisy image..

Photo Info: Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Canon EF 100-300mm IS DO lens at 95 mm. 1/50 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400.

(Originally posted January 7, 2013. Revised and updated January 6, 2017.)

Winter Photography Series Links

“How To” Series: Winter Photography – An Overview

Metering Daytime Winter Scenes

Metering People in the Snow

Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part One

Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part Two

Metering Evening Winter Scenes

Metering Nighttime Winter Scenes

Protect Your Camera Gear in the Cold and Snow

Testing Your Camera’s Snow Exposure Latitude

The Sunny f16 Rule Isn’t Reliable in Winter

How To Work With A Model When The Windchill is 4°

How to Find and Photograph Snow Owls

A Snowy Owl Photo Expedition

The Best National Parks to Photograph in Winter

Winter Photography Safety Essentials

More Links

Understanding apertures, shutter speeds and ISO settings

Using Reflected Light Meters, Part One – information on exposure compensation.

How to Use Your Camera’s Exposure Compensation Scale

For more information on metering, exposure compensation, depth of field, focal lengths for various kinds of portraits, and a lot more information on creating better portraits, read Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. Highly recommended by pros and amateurs alike, it is one of the highest rated photography books at Amazon.com. More information about how it will improve your photography is in this article, and you can buy it at Amazon.com.

The best books on people photography

The best book on photographic lighting