Beat the cold in the wind and snow

    In this regard, there are no special requirements for winter photography, and the equipment you use every day can be competent. Prepare one or two zoom lenses with a focal length of 28 to 200 mm to be able to shoot any scene, including open scenes and distant details. If one of them also has some close-up capabilities, you shouldn't pass up the opportunity to capture tiny landscapes. It's not necessary, but it's also a good idea to bring a lens with a longer or shorter focal length.

　　A tripod is a must. Dawn and dusk in winter can be very dim, and long exposures are unavoidable. Even in bright sunlight, in order to obtain a large depth of field, we often need to stop the aperture very small, then the shutter speed will become slower, and the hand-held camera will take a lot of risk. Holding an aluminum tripod outside in the cold can be uncomfortable, so you can wrap strips of cloth around the legs of the tripod to cover the exposed metal. You can also buy a properly sized styrofoam tube and attach it to the legs of the tripod.

　　As for filters, polarizers are most useful on sunny days. It is also necessary to prepare a ND4 (light reduction level 2) and a ND8 (light reduction level 3) ND filter, which can darken the sky that is too bright. The 81 series of warm-colored mirrors can effectively balance the cold-colored light, and are often used in winter.

　　To protect your camera and lens when it rains or snows, you can take a few clear plastic bags and rubber bands with you when you go out. Cover your camera and lens with them, and you can keep shooting when it rains or snows. You should also bring a lens cloth and a soft, dry cloth to wipe off water droplets from the lens and body at all times. It's also worth bringing a small piece of plastic sheeting, which you can spread on the floor and kneel on for a low-angle shot so you don't get your pants wet.

　　When traversing snow or ice, it is best to use a backpack camera bag rather than a camera shoulder bag. The former can evenly distribute the weight on your back, making you feel more comfortable when carrying the equipment and help to maintain the balance of the body.

　　wonderful light

　　The winter days are short, and sunrise often doesn't occur until around 7 am. By the end of December, the sun sets just after 4 pm. After the winter sun rises above the horizon, it does not rise very high in the sky until sunset. So in winter the quality of sunlight is always good and you can shoot continuously from dawn to dusk.

    This means that you get as much effective shooting time in winter as in summer, as long as the weather permits. To make the most of the time available for shooting, you can get up before sunrise and go out before dawn to capture the mysterious low-light world before dawn. Winter mornings are a magical time when the sky transitions from soft pinks to purples and blues. If there is snow and frost on the surface, they will appear bluish because they reflect the color of the sky.

     When the sun rises in the cold sky, it appears larger than at other times due to the diffusion of the atmosphere. If frost happens in the morning, you can take amazing photos, especially when you zoom in on the sun with a telephoto lens.

Early morning is the best time to photograph frost. Frost is formed by the condensation of water vapor when the temperature drops, and frosted objects can not only add a novel element to a photo, but also allow you to capture some very rare details, including small ice glittering in the sun. Spider webs of beads, fallen leaves covered with hoarfrost, dazzling berries against a white background...

    Frost is indeed magical. When the air is humid during the day and the temperature drops below zero degrees Celsius at night, the water vapor in the air may condense into ice crystals that attach to objects they come into contact with, such as the wild grass in the countryside. If there is a light breeze at night, the grass looks like countless gleaming knives in the early morning.

    Enter the woodlands on a misty morning and you have the chance to see the amazing phenomenon of "sun piercing". At this time, wisps of sunlight will penetrate through the branches, and the fog will make them more eye-catching. This scene should be photographed with the sun behind the tree, but with its rays shining through. Bracket the exposure by at least one stop up from the meter reading, a slight overexposure will usually accentuate the effect of this scene.

    For the perfect winter splendor, nothing beats a wide-open, grand landscape photo. On a cold morning, the sun rose in the sky, the fog had cleared, and the air was crystal clear. This scenario is not uncommon in winter.

    Find interesting foregrounds that add depth and scale to your photos. Frost-covered fields, distant rivers, icy lake shores, and ruts in the snow are all good choices. Some plants like heather and fern retain their autumn colors in winter, and you can use them to break up the monotony of snowy landscapes and spice up your photos.

    To fully express the foreground, you only need to use a wide-angle lens. The shorter the focal length, the closer you should shoot to the foreground for maximum perspective distortion. A wide-angle lens is the best tool for highlighting the lines formed by roads, fences, rivers, ruts, etc.

　　snow shooting

　　When it comes to winter, most people think of the white snow scene first. Heavy snow can make common sights attractive and become the object of artistic expression. Early morning with clean air is the best time to photograph snow scenes, when the snow does not melt due to rising temperatures, and there are no messy footprints on the snow. The pure white snow against the blue sky is sure to impress.

　　It is best to shoot in the early morning or around 3pm, when the setting sun can make the texture of the snow more striking, making the pure white snow look less monotonous.

　　Using a polarizer in sunlight can deepen the blue of the sky and eliminate reflections from snow. Skylight or UV mirrors are also necessary in winter. They can eliminate the blue component of the light and reduce the effect of fog on the clarity of the picture to a certain extent, especially when shooting in mountainous areas.

　　With snow, the key is to get the most accurate metering possible, even when taking close-up shots of frosted objects or landscapes that include a large white sky. Even the highly intelligent multi-zone metering system will be very difficult in the face of snow, and it is difficult to avoid underexposure when shooting according to its readings.

　　It gets even worse if you're shooting snow at sunrise and sunset when the sky is very bright. Fortunately for digital cameras this isn't too much of a problem, as you can instantly view the result and check the histogram. All you need to do is shoot in aperture priority mode and adjust the exposure at your own discretion.

　　Usually, you need to add a stop of exposure to the meter reading to correct for underexposure. Or you can use 1/3EV as a step value to perform bracketing exposure within the range of +2EV based on the metering reading, and then select a photo with the most accurate exposure.

　　If you're a perfectionist and not afraid of trouble, you can use a handheld light meter to measure the incoming light that hits the scene. This is the most reliable practice as incident light readings will not be affected by snow.

　　plunge into the ice and snow

   If people take fewer photos in winter, the main reason should be that the days are too short and the weather is cold in winter. As long as you focus on shooting, you won't notice how fast time is passing. If you are not careful, the sun has already started to set on the horizon.

    If you pay attention in winter, you will find that the sun's path across the sky will be very short. It will rise from the southeast and fall to the southwest. Sunsets are also much shorter in winter than in summer, with the sky generally darkening a few minutes after sunset.

    On a clear winter day, sunset usually means the end of a landscape shoot, but it's worth the extra time. In really cold weather, the sky often takes on a dreamy shimmer after sunset. You'd be better off shooting this scene by a lake or river, so you can have the water or ice as the foreground of the photo, both of which reflect the colors of the sky.

    Snow scenes also look amazing in this light. White snow slightly reflects the color of the sky, and on a clear day it reflects the blue of the sky. As dusk approaches, the warm tones that appear on the west side of the sky create a wonderful contrast and contrast with the cool tones of the blue sky.

    In short, in order to take ideal photos, the key is to master the timing of shooting. It's not difficult, you just need to sit at home and listen to the weather forecast. However, it is impossible to take pictures of beautiful scenery at home. You have to put on thick clothes, put on a camera bag, and go to the ice and snow to exert your artistic creativity.

　　must-have filters

　　fter entering the magical digital world, do you still need traditional filters? Let's compare the differences between filters and image processing.

　　Neutral Gradient Filter

    The mid-gray graduated filter is designed for landscape photography, and it has a denser mid-gray (darker color) in the upper half and a less dense mid-gray (lighter color) or colorless in the lower half. When using it, the bright light of the sky will be attenuated, thus balancing the brightness of the sky with the foreground. Typically, the mid-gray transitions smoothly and gradually from the top half of the lens to the bottom half, which is where this filter gets its name.

    A neutral gray gradient lens has several different levels of light reduction, depending on the density of neutral gray in its upper half. The amount of light reduction is sometimes divided into 1, 2, and 3 levels, and sometimes by coefficients of 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9, which correspond to 1EV, 2EV, and 3EV of light reduction. Our common Kenco and Gaojian filters are divided into ND2, ND4, and ND8, which also correspond to 1EV, 2EV, and 3EV, respectively.

    Gao Jian's filter is square and needs to be used with a filter holder. The less expensive A-series are suitable for lenses with thread diameters less than 58mm. The larger P series are suitable for large aperture lenses and medium and large format cameras. Although many professional photographers use more advanced Lee filters (www.leefilters.com), Cokin (www.cokin.com) is currently the most famous square filter manufacturer,

    The frame of the square filter is very cheap, and the lens mount is about 100 yuan. You can gradually buy multiple filters according to your needs, and buy adapters with different calibers to use with different lenses. The lens of the high-strength filter is made of resin, which is easy to be scratched, which is its disadvantage.

　　Warm color filter

    A big difference between film and sensor is that the spectral response (color balance) of film is fixed, whereas with digital technology you can create the colors you want at will. You can use white balance to control the color of the image while shooting, or you can shoot in RAW and fine-tune the white balance in post. Even if you set the camera's white balance incorrectly, or shoot a JPEG file with the wrong color, you can easily correct the color cast using Photoshop or other image processing software.

    So, do we still need those color-correcting filters that landscape photographers once had? The most commonly used of these filters are the warm-toned 81 series of warm color filters, which are divided into 81A, 81B and 81C. species, and their ability to correct cool tones increases sequentially.

    We took multiple photos of the same scene on a cloudy day, some with warm filters, some without filters, and some with the camera's "daylight" white balance preset. This time we used a screw-in circular filter from Kenko (www.gzkenko.com). Many lens manufacturers also offer a small number of filters for their lenses, mainly polarizers and UV filters. The lens of the circular filter is generally made of glass, which is not easy to be scratched during use. However, the caliber of this filter is fixed, if you have many lenses of different calibers, it will be more troublesome.

　　Shooting of dynamic landscapes　

    Maybe you think of landscapes as a static subject, but after looking at many landscapes, you'll see that movement is everywhere.

Everything on our planet is in constant motion. Long rivers run, tides ebb and flow, waves crashing on the shore, floating clouds... Recording their movements will not only make your landscape photos more beautiful and dynamic, but also add a fourth dimension to them - the sense of time .

    How can this be done? It depends on the precise control of exposure time. Usually the exposure time we use to take photos is tens to hundreds of hundredths of a second, and after extending this time, you will have amazing discoveries. This slow shutter technique is most commonly used for waterfall shots. In order to make the water flow soft and ethereal, we need to open the shutter for 1 second or longer. After the movement of the water flow is continuously recorded by the camera, it will produce a special and magical effect.

    Fix the camera on a tripod, set the sensitivity to the lowest (usually ISO 50 or 100), and the aperture to the smallest (f/16 or f/22), so that you can use a very slow shutter speed. If this is not enough, you can attach a ND filter or polarizer to the lens to reduce the amount of light entering the camera.

    If you are shooting ebb and flow, you need to keep the shutter open for 10 seconds or more. The longer the exposure time, the more tidal motion is recorded, and in the end the sea looks like a haze. Dawn and dusk are the best times for this effect.

    For the waves hitting the shore, you can set the exposure time to 1 second, and press the shutter at the moment when the waves hit the rocks. If you want to freeze the scene of flying flowers and jade when the angry waves hit the coast, you should use a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/1000 seconds. Compose your shots in advance and wait for sunset to capture the peculiar and gorgeous colors against the blurry water.

    On dry land, the swaying of grass and trees in high winter winds is also a common exercise. The shutter speed required to record this movement depends on the amount of wobble, but a 1-second exposure is usually successful. If you're not sure, take a few test shots, check the results on the camera's LCD screen, and adjust the shutter speed faster or slower if necessary. Digital technology has undoubtedly made the slow shutter technique easier and more effective.

　　Experts talk about landscape photography

    A prolific landscape photographer, Guy explains the magic of digital photography and reveals some tips for capturing masterpieces in the freezing cold.

    Dive deep into the English countryside at dawn or dusk and you can always see photographers taking those incredible views in earnest. It's no exaggeration to say that I think I've photographed more British landscapes than most people.

    About two years ago, I started using a digital camera and it changed the way I work. When using a film camera, I'm used to carrying a whole bunch of filters and often using a ND filter to control the light ratio. Right now I only use two filters: a 3-stop ND filter (the one without gradients) and a polarizer. Their effects cannot currently be simulated digitally.

    After switching to a digital camera, Canon's EOS-1Ds and later EOS-1D Mark II can meet my resolution requirements. At this time, the imaging of the lens has become the key. I use different lenses for different subjects and the main problem I have is that wide angle lenses are not sharp enough on full frame digital cameras and have chromatic aberration. When you zoom in on an image to scrutinize it, all the blemishes are nowhere to be seen, and there are more of them with a wide-angle lens.

　　Choose a lens

    I now use top-of-the-line Carl Zeiss lenses for image softness and chromatic aberration, although Canon's 17-40mm and 28-70mm lenses also feature, I prefer the Zeiss 21mm, 28mm and 50mm mm Distagon lenses and attach them to the Canon body via a Contax adapter ring. In any case, we cannot be exhaustive when it comes to choosing equipment.

    Everyone is trying to shoot landscapes, and I think landscapes are a very difficult subject to photograph. Whether you're shooting in backlight, mist, or in a storm, this subject requires you to have the ability to capture the atmosphere. I've been trying to take pictures of that unique landscape that should feel very different from what people see on a daily basis.

    I primarily photographed birds at first, but after dabbling in more general landscape photography, I found myself preferring the latter. For animal photography, in most cases the content of the photo is determined by the subject, while landscape photography allows people to exert their creativity. You can decide where to shoot in what lighting conditions, and what composition to use.

    Winter landscapes are a tough test for all photographers, but even with the temperature plummeting, my digital camera still performed well. When I switched to a digital camera, I was very concerned about its battery performance, especially in extremely cold climates. In Finland, daytime temperatures can drop to -25 degrees Celsius, and I'm worried that this will cause the battery to die or cause other potential problems with digital cameras, but I haven't had any trouble with that yet. Digital cameras are more reliable than film cameras, at least you don't risk the film becoming brittle or breaking.

    Be sure to protect your camera in severe cold, as water vapor condensation is a particularly prominent problem. To avoid this, I leave the camera outside to keep it cool when entering the house. If it's safe to bring it into a warm room, I won't open the camera bag until it's warm. If I need to remove the memory card, I also do it outside.

　　Filming locations　

    I live in Dorset, England, where it hasn't snowed for several years, so I often travel to the Scottish Highlands in England to capture the best of winter, and Glen Lyon, north of Lake Tai, is my particular favorite. When high pressure persists in this place for a period of time, the fog produced at night will also be suspended in the low sky after dawn, often not dissipated throughout the day, and hoarfrost will form on the trees.

    Landscape photography is different from wildlife photography, where you need to be patient and wait for the opportunity to come. When photographing landscapes, you can roughly figure out when the opportunity will come, it's just the result of a combination of factors.

    If you find a good place, you should visit it again and again until you take the picture of your dreams. First of all, you have to have an eye for composition and know how to create a good landscape photo. Second, you have to have the dedication to be able to get up and rush to the shooting location before dawn, so that you can capture the best time to shoot about 10 minutes at sunrise.