How to photograph snow and beaches without grey or dull photos
Bright snow and sunny beaches look dazzling to the eye, yet photos of them often come out grey, dull or slightly blue. The cause is predictable: the camera's light meter is built for average scenes and gets confused by large bright areas. Once you know how to correct it, these scenes are among the easiest to photograph well. This guide explains the exposure fix, white balance, polarisers and glare, then covers protecting your equipment from sand, salt and cold, with a phone version at the end.
Starting settings
1Know why bright scenes come out grey
A camera's light meter does not know what it is pointed at. It assumes the scene, on average, should come out as a middle tone, often described as middle grey. For a street or a park this works well. For a field of snow or a white beach, the meter sees too much brightness and darkens the exposure until the snow becomes grey.
The result is a dull photo with muddy whites and faces that look too dark. The scene was fine; the meter simply did what it was designed to do.
- Expect this whenever bright white or pale sand fills most of the frame.
- Compare the photo on the screen with the real scene: if the snow looks grey rather than white, the meter has underexposed.
- Remember the opposite also happens: a dark scene such as black volcanic sand will be brightened too much.
2Add +1 to +2 EV of exposure compensation
Exposure compensation tells the camera to make the image brighter or darker than its meter suggests. In bright snow or sand, adding brightness brings the whites back to white. The amount is a rule of thumb: about +1 EV for a mixed scene with some snow or sand, closer to +2 EV when white fills the whole frame in sunshine.
Use a semi-automatic mode such as aperture priority so the compensation dial actually changes the exposure. In manual mode, set the exposure so the meter reads about +1 to +2 instead of zero.
- Set aperture priority (A or Av) and a low ISO of 100–200.
- Find the exposure compensation control, often a +/- button or dial, and start at +1 EV.
- Take a test shot, look at it and the histogram, then adjust in steps of 1/3 EV.
- Recheck when you turn toward or away from the sun, or when clouds move across; the right amount changes.
3Check the histogram and highlights
The camera screen is hard to judge in bright sun, so trust the histogram instead. For a snowy or sandy scene, most of the graph should sit toward the right side, but not pile up hard against the right edge. A tall spike at the edge means the whites have turned to pure white with no texture left.
The goal is the brightest snow just short of clipping, so you can still see footprints, ripples in sand and soft shadows.
- Turn on the histogram display and the highlight warning ('blinkies') in playback.
- If the graph sits in the middle, add more compensation; if it is jammed against the right edge, take some away.
- Small blinking spots on sun reflections are fine; large blinking areas of snow are not.
- Shoot RAW if you can: it keeps more highlight detail to recover later.
4Control white balance and blue snow
Snow reflects the colour of whatever lights it. In shade or under a clear blue sky, it picks up the blue of the sky and looks cold and bluish, especially in photos. Auto white balance sometimes adds to this, sometimes overcorrects and turns everything slightly yellow.
A little blue in shadows looks natural and shows the cold. Too much makes the whole scene look unreal.
- Set white balance to daylight in sunshine, or cloudy/shade when the scene is in shadow, to warm it slightly.
- Or set a Kelvin value around 5,500–6,500 K and adjust by eye (approximate).
- In RAW files, correct the colour later by clicking a neutral white area of snow with the white balance picker.
- Keep some blue in the shadows at sunrise and sunset; warm light on snow with blue shadows is part of the charm.
5Use a polariser carefully
A circular polarising filter cuts glare from water, wet sand and ice, and darkens a blue sky so the clouds stand out. On a beach it can make shallow water clear enough to see the sand below.
The effect is strongest when the sun is at about 90 degrees to your viewing direction and weakest when the sun is directly behind or in front of you. With a wide-angle lens it can make the sky uneven, dark in one part and light in another.
- Screw the polariser on and rotate it while watching the screen or viewfinder until glare or sky looks best.
- Point your shoulder, not your face or back, at the sun for the strongest effect.
- Do not use full strength with very wide lenses; back off to avoid a dark band in the sky.
- Remember it costs about 1–2 stops of light, so check that the shutter speed stays fast enough.
6Beat glare: lens hood and sunscreen
Bright surfaces bounce light everywhere, including into the front of the lens. That stray light creates flare: hazy, low-contrast images and coloured spots. Your eyes suffer too, and squinting at the screen makes it hard to judge photos.
Sunscreen helps your skin but can leave a greasy film on the lens and screen if it is still on your fingers.
- Keep the lens hood on all the time; it also guards the front glass from bumps and spray.
- If the sun is just outside the frame, shade the lens with your hand or a hat.
- Apply sunscreen well before handling the camera and wipe your hands; clean smears with a microfibre cloth, not your shirt.
- Wear sunglasses between shots, and use a screen hood or the viewfinder to judge images.
7Protect gear from sand, salt and spray
Fine sand gets into zoom rings, buttons and the camera body when you change lenses. Salt spray dries into a sticky film that can corrode metal contacts. Neither is visible at first, which is why damage often shows up weeks later.
- Change lenses as little as possible on the beach, and only with your back to the wind, inside a bag if you can.
- Keep the camera in a sealed bag or a zip-top plastic bag when not in use; never put it straight onto the sand.
- Remove sand with a blower first, then a soft brush; wiping can grind grains into the glass.
- After the trip, wipe the body with a cloth slightly dampened with fresh water, then dry it.
- Use a UV or clear filter if you like, so the spray hits the filter instead of the lens.
8Handle cold, batteries and condensation
Cold weakens batteries quickly; near or below freezing (0 °C / 32 °F) a battery can appear empty even though it still holds charge. Warming it brings much of the charge back.
The bigger risk comes when you go back indoors. Warm, humid air condenses on the cold camera, inside and out, and can form moisture on the sensor and electronics.
- Carry spare batteries in an inside pocket close to your body and swap them as they fade.
- Before going indoors, put the camera in a sealed plastic bag, ideally with the memory card removed first, and let it warm up slowly for an hour or two (approximate).
- Do not breathe on the lens to clean it in the cold; the moisture can freeze.
- Wear thin gloves that let you work the buttons, under a warmer pair of mittens.
9Photograph snow and beaches with a phone
Phones meter bright scenes the same way and often produce greyish snow, although some models handle it better through scene detection. HDR helps keep detail in bright skies and sand. The cold and sand risks are the same, and phone batteries often shut down early in freezing weather.
- Tap on the subject to focus, then slide the exposure (sun) control up until the snow looks white but still shows texture.
- Leave HDR on, and avoid tapping on the brightest snow, which darkens the photo.
- Brighten slightly and adjust warmth in the editing app if snow looks grey or blue.
- Keep the phone in an inside pocket between shots, and in a zip-top bag on the beach.
Before you go out
- Aperture priority, ISO 100–200
- Exposure compensation set to about +1 EV
- Histogram and highlight warning switched on
- White balance on daylight or about 5,500–6,500 K
- Lens hood fitted; polariser in the bag
- Blower, microfibre cloth and a zip-top bag
- Spare batteries in an inside pocket
- Sealed bag for warming the camera back up indoors
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