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What are some good ways to get good tips to take photos while and of snowboarding?

  • I will be going snowboarding this weekend and wanted to take some good pictures. I'm comfortable with my SLR and really like thinking about photographs before clicking them. What are some good tips for someone photographing his friends (and himself maybe!) snowboarding? Things I should be careful about...Things I should keep in mind, Pictures I absolutely should try and get...all advice is good advice! We're not really experienced snowboarders...so no stunts, but reasonably fast snowboarding...

  • Answer:

    Here is a trick you can use to set your exposure properly for your subject. The palm of your hand is approximately equivalent to an 18% gray card. (An 18% gray card is used in photography as a standard exposure reference. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card) Turn the palm of your hand such that it is lit in the same way your subject will be lit. For example, if your subject is standing with their back to the sun, turn the back of your hand toward the sun. Next, take an exposure reading off the palm of your hand; set your camera to manual and set your aperture and shutter to the same values that you metered off your hand. Now, any picture you take where the subject is lit the same way as your hand should be properly exposed for your subject. Warning: background objects, lit differently than your subjects, can be over- or under-exposed depending on how they are lit in comparison to your subject. (Usually the case in snowy conditions, subjects in shade or with backlit subjects.) Alternatively, if you are shooting with a digital camera, snap a photo. You can verify that the exposure (of the subject) is correct on the camera's screen. If it isn't, adjust your exposure and shoot again. Keep in mind, since you are shooting digitally, you can take experimental photos to check exposure in the view finder and adjust exposure accordingly. And, you can experiment with exposure settings to learn what happens under different conditions and for artistic effect.

Robert Stockdale at Quora Visit the source

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Other answers

Do spot-metering for the exposure, not evaluative. Your camera will look at the whole scene and then expose properly for the super-bright-and-white snow and under-expose the boarders. Only use evaluative for vistas of mountains of for wide-views with a few dots of boarders in it. Anything where the boarder is featured as an identifiable subject (about 1/5 of the print-size or more), should be exposed for the subject. Shutter speed is paramount for fast action. Do your metering in shutter-priority. Change the ISO so that you get the aperature to match your needs. (Ad Ed says, tight aperture is probably smart here.) Once you have a good idea of the exposure setting, you might want to switch to manual exposure so you don't have to keep pinning the spot-meter point exactly on the boarder every time. Just recheck every time you are in a new environment  like in the trees or in the shadow of a mountain. It's better to shoot action coming toward you. Who wants to look at the ass of some strangers; give me faces! But since shooting uphill while moving is "difficult" at best, you should just get ahead of your friends, set up, and let them pass you going fast. Sports photography depends on fast-focusing lenses and a DSLR with AI Servo or AF-C. This allows the camera to keep changing the focus as the subject moves closer/further. Remember to have some fun that day and do some snowboarding. Setting up shots all day won't be the fun for your friends. Even if you love it.

Todd Gardiner

Use a high shutter speed to eliminate any motion blur. There'll be plenty of light  up there so you should be able to use a high f-stop too, which will allow you to be less precise with your focusing (assuming you're in manual mode) and still get good shots while on the move. If your camera is expensive remember the case or something soft and waterproof to wrap it in.

Ed O'Brien

To add what others have said, shooting in RAW is a huge advantage. Conditions may change quickly and if a shot is underexposed you can still recover alot of the detail. White balance on the snow is tricky, using a color reference card can come in handy. Also, you didn't mention what lens you would be using, but I usually shoot wide open with a fast lens so I have a fast shutter speed.

Kevin Kim

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