There are many things that need to be seriously considered when going out to create photography in the cold winter, especially the impact of cold on the photographer and on the camera , battery and film.
If you are engaged in photography creation in cold areas, you must first pay attention to your own warmth. The photographer's clothing should be determined according to the degree of cold. Generally, a duck down jacket, electric socks and a thick sweater should be worn, and a duck down hat with ear caps should be worn on the head. Hands should wear silk or cotton clip gloves, plus thick duck down fingerless gloves. Down gloves are to be strapped to the two cuffs of the pack so they can be taken off at any time, and only silk gloves are used for shooting. In particular, exposed parts such as the tip of the nose, ears, and fingers are most prone to frostbite. Special attention should be paid to protection and frequent rubbing to speed up blood circulation and enhance cold resistance.
In severe cold climates, avoid the camera being subjected to too much and too rapid temperature changes. When going from indoors to outdoors, the camera is suddenly exposed to the cold, the moist components in the hot air in the body will be frosted or frozen immediately, the metal shutter is prone to failure, the lens is also prone to open glue, and cracks appear, which will cause damage to the camera. Creation brings unexpected trouble. In this case, photographers should take effective precautions in advance. When not taking pictures, you should carry the camera on your body and carry it in your arms, and only take it out of your arms when you need to take pictures. When entering the room from the outside, due to the heating in the room, the lens, the viewfinder frame and the film will condense and "sweat", causing the metal parts to rust and fail. After returning indoors from the outdoors, do not take out the camera immediately, but only when the temperature is close to the indoor temperature, so as not to cause the camera parts to malfunction.
When framing or shooting, be careful not to let the frozen metal parts come into direct contact with the skin of your face, and be careful not to breathe air onto the camera. The moisture caused by breathing can freeze or stick to the skin, and it may also make the viewfinder or lens on the camera wet and form a thin layer of ice, which will affect the shooting.
Special attention should be paid to protecting the roll film when engaging in photographic creation in winter. Because in the cold outside, the film will become brittle due to freezing. Easily cracked, broken or torn abruptly, the feed hole on the film is often the starting point for cracks. Therefore, when loading the roll into the camera, it is best to do it indoors. If you need to roll up the film outdoors, you should take the film on your body in advance and put it in your pocket to warm up. When changing to a film, take it out in the leeward and reload it as soon as possible. Be especially careful when shooting, whether you are dialing the aperture, or moving the shutter, don't move too fast or too hard, so as not to damage the parts or break the film. In the cold winter, the climate is relatively dry, and both the film and the camera are prone to generate static electricity. The phenomenon of electrostatic discharge will cause curvilinear spots on the film that cannot be erased. This phenomenon usually occurs when advancing or unwinding. The best way to overcome this is to move softly, slowly, and gradually, and do not use sudden force when advancing and unwinding. Films shot in winter, especially color films, should be developed as quickly as possible, as the density will decrease over time, just like underexposure.
In a low temperature environment, the battery used in the electronic shutter camera is often reduced in power supply due to freezing, and even fails to supply power, resulting in the inability to take pictures. When going out to take pictures, the photographer needs to have a spare battery in his pocket, which can be replaced with the cold battery inside the camera. fitted. When you are not taking pictures, you can hide the camera in your clothes and keep the installed battery at a proper temperature by using your body temperature. Only take out the camera when you need to take pictures.
Winter photography is very different from spring, summer and fall. In winter, the light is relatively soft and the illumination is relatively low, so it is necessary to prevent insufficient exposure. Under normal circumstances, the exposure in winter should be one aperture larger than that in spring and autumn, and two apertures larger than that in summer, or the shutter speed should be reduced by one to two levels, and underexposure should be avoided when shooting snow scenes.
The weather is cold in winter, and the light time suitable for shooting is short, only four or five hours. For landscape photography, not only do you have to be cold outside and get frozen, but you have to take the time to act quickly so as not to miss the precious time you can take pictures. Especially in severe cold weather, the temperature will be too low, causing the electronic and mechanical parts of the camera to fail, so that the shutter cannot be opened. Therefore, when going out for photography in the harsh winter, the camera should be placed in a coat or cotton coat in advance, and do not take out the camera before shooting. After looking at the direction of the light and the viewing angle when shooting, be quick and take it out of the clothes quickly to shoot. Be extra careful, slow down and put back in your clothes immediately after shooting.
In order to highlight the effect of heavy snowfall, the shutter speed of photography should be placed below 1/60 second, and a dark scene should be selected as the background, so that the white snowflakes and the traces of falling snowflakes can be clearly displayed. It is also necessary to place the camera under an umbrella or a sheltered place to prevent snowflakes from falling on the lens and affecting the photographic effect. If snowflakes fall, you should immediately wipe off the snowflakes gently with absorbent cotton or lens paper, or use an air brush to remove them, but do not blow them with your mouth, because the hot air blowing out of your mouth will make the snowflakes dissolve quickly. Frost sticks to the lens, which is difficult to remove in cold environments.
In winter, when shooting snow scenes, filters are essential, especially when shooting color photos. The white snow under the blue sky reflects a lot of purple and blue light, which will have a great impact on the film, making the color film seriously bluish and white. The snow turned into nearly blue snow. Practice has proved that it is better to add a ND filter in front of the lens, which can prevent the super-cool blue tone on the color film and improve the color. For black and white photos, you need to add a No. 2 yellow filter or green filter in front of the lens, which can improve the contrast, especially the contrast between snow and shadows. If you add a polarizer , you can exclude the reflection of some scenes on the ice and snow.
In winter photography, a tripod is also essential. Due to the weak light in winter, the shutter speed cannot be too high, not to mention that sometimes the picture requires a longer depth of field , and the aperture needs to be narrowed to shoot. In addition, there are many factors such as the use of filters, and the exposure time must be increased. If you do not use a tripod, it is very likely that the camera will be unstable, resulting in blurred images.