Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Skiing Photography
  • spacecadett
    Free Member

    I am off to the French Alps next week on a skiing holiday and wondered if anybody had any tips for taking good photographs?

    I have a Sony NEX-5 camera with the usual controls. I am fairly competent with the camera but certainly no expert. Are there any basic tips for decent images?

    Thanks!

    IA
    Full Member

    Consider bumping exposure compensation up a notch or two. In general a camera will autoexpose for a neutral exposure, whereas with a lot of snow the correct exposure will actually be very bright. The camera doesn’t know this, and tries for a neutral exposure – this is why snow heavy pictures can often come out dark making the snow look grey where it’s actually bright white.

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    Ditch the camera and just ski and enjoy yourself.

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    stumpy01
    Full Member

    What he said. For most snowy scenes you are best to over-expose by 1 stop or so. That’ll get you white snow, rather than dull grey.

    If it has loads of scene settings, you will probably have one for beach/snow. This will do the over-exposure for you.
    Try and keep the camera in between shots, as it’ll improve battery life.

    Bit OTT perhaps, but a polariser might help for emphasising nice blue skies & reducing glare, assuming you can get one for the lens. You’ll need a circular polariser & will need to find the filter thread size on your lens. Hoya do some decent ones at a good price.

    IA
    Full Member

    Actually as a NEX is mirrorless and uses contrast detect autofocus rather than the phase-detect of a DSLR a linear polariser would work fine. Use one ok on my G1 for that reason. But if you’re buying new anyhow, get a circular.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Agree with polariser and exposure comments.

    Also, get in close! Properly close.

    Nothing more boring than holiday snaps of a tiny indistinguishable stick figure on an empty white slope.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    Meant to say try to keep the camera WARM in between shots, as it’ll improve battery life.
    Only missed out the most relevant word in that sentence!! Doh!!

    richpips
    Free Member

    stumpy01 – Member

    Meant to say try to keep the camera WARM in between shots, as it’ll improve battery life.

    Keep your camera warm, and everytime you take it out you’ll get condensation on the lens (and most likely the inside gubbins)

    glenh
    Free Member

    Keep the camera cold, and the battery warm.

    The auto HDR feature of the nex5 might be good for snow shots, depending on the level of dynamic range in your image of course. Try it out (you get the standard pic too anyway).

    glenh
    Free Member

    p.s. and ND filter might be useful to if you want to use a large aperture for focus effects in bright light, or want a longer exposure for motion blur.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    Keep your camera warm, and everytime you take it out you’ll get condensation on the lens (and most likely the inside gubbins)

    Theoretically I guess. I meant just tuck it into a jacket, rather than in the depths of the bag to take the edge off. Obviously this might not be practical/safe.
    Realistically it won’t be kept that much warmer than ambient and I’d be surprised if it caused a genuine issue. Only time I’ve had a real problem with this is taking my camera from the boot of my car at near zero temps straight into the house.
    I was going to suggest just keeping the battery warm, but this isn’t exactly practical, unless you remove it when stopped for lunch etc. It doesn’t really make quick shots very practical though….

    Hey ho.

    grumm
    Free Member

    I believe there is a ‘speed priority’ mode on the NEX 5 – which gives you 7 shots a second. Burst mode can be very useful for action shots. I do put my battery in a breast pocket when it’s really cold.

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