Conditions
Photographing Snow Scenes Without Grey Mush
Snow confuses cameras. That clean white blanket that your eyes see as pure and bright shows up as dull, dingy gray in photographs. Every photographer encounters this, and many assume their camera isn’t performing well. The camera is working exactly as designed — the problem is that camera meters are designed around a specific assumption that snow violates. Why Snow Turns Gray Camera light meters assume that every scene averages to a medium tone — roughly 18% gray.