settings for snow shots for d70s

[stevenek3]

Hi, wonder if theres any essential special settings for d70s for snow shots where white will cover 2/3 of the photo?

also, when taking scenery, whats the diff between f11 and f22? ive seen some really great shots taken with f22. but ive researched that f11 is the sharpest for the kit lense.

[mudder]

G'day Steve,

Just popped in for a moment before I head out, thought I'd bump this up

I've never taken shots in the snow and I'm sure some more experienced members here will provide some good feedback... Might be worth trying a few test shots when you first start off and check for highlight blowout in your histogram. All the white snow might throw out the metering, so you may need to dial in some exposure compensation... Told ya I'd struggle I don't think I'd use spot or centre-weighted metering, I think I'd stick to matrix but as I mentioned I've never taken snow shots... I'd also suggest a polariser if you have one, which may help with contrast etc... Oh, did a quick search and found this thread that may help too
http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php? ... light=snow

Re: the aperture question for landscape stuff... It may be common for lenses to be their absolute sharpest at their mid-range of apertures, some will fare better than others at the wide-open end (maybe the higher quality/more expensive ones?), but sometimes people will use a very small aperture (eg: F22) to slow the shutter down and increase exposure times... For example, some may use a very small aperture to obtain a longer shutter speed for that blurred water effect on waterfalls, or they may want a huge DOF having something really close in the foreground and still want distant things to be in focus and sharp...

Best advice is to have a ball!

Cheers.

[leek]

Steve,

Try looking in this recent thread for tips on shooting in snow...

[dooda]

Yeah, just take a couple of pictures and figure out the settings, switch over to manual, and all things the same you'll be able to keep it on those same settings until the light starts to go away. Leave the review on highlight, so if it suddenly got brighter, it'll show you. Or you can leave it on matrix, go + EV 1/3 or 2/3 (whatever you get before highlights get blown) and leave it like that.

My kit lens starts to perform well at F8, and at infinity focus (I shoot at night often) F8 is relatively sharp. F11 gives me slightly better detail in the really far away and really close up stuff, and F13 even better still. I don't stop down much from there often enough to really know what it does, but I heard it gets soft. All lenses will be different though, so you'll want to keep tabs on what you get with which apeture.