Winter Sport Photography – Tips to Capture Some Exciting Pictures This Winter

Capturing the beauty of particular setting in a tricky lighting is difficult.

As you photograph during winters in the mountains, light may continue to vary from deep and rich to blown out and flat. Similarly, as winters are approaching, a lot of people are getting ready to hit the slopes along with their cameras to do some action sports photography.

Indeed, the combination of snowy mountains and scorching sun is hard to deal with but if you know some tips for winter sport photography, you can get yourself some awesome winter sport photographs, full of excitement and colors, which will be cherished and remembered for years.

So, before you plan to hit the slopes and conquer the mountains, let us have a look at some useful tips for awesome winter sport photography.

Equipment

Your camera might not be designed to get wet unless it’s waterproof. Therefore, as you photograph in winter, chances are that snow will melt into puddles and obviously nobody likes to see puddles in the picture that is aimed to capture the winter sport action. So, keep your camera inside a proper cover. Similarly, the best way to capture the winter colors and outdoor sport action is to use different kind of lenses. However, a pair of telephoto lens and a wide angle lens will also suffice the purpose. The wide angle lens will help in shooting mountain scene whereas a telephoto lens provides excellent results for an in-the-air shot.

Batteries

Batteries are always problematic in such cold weather. If it’s either your car battery or camera or flash batteries, they usually die faster in the cold. So, in order to prevent this problem, you have a few options to consider. For instance, bring with you additional batteries, keep your gear covered or in your coat, store some backup batteries at some warm place or you may use the thermal cooler to store batteries which is easily available at various hardware stores.

Capture the Action

We all want to freeze and capture that split of second when the snowboarder or a skier is barreling by. To capture this moment perfectly and at the right time, keep the shutter speed much faster such as 1/1000 per second which is considered ideal by professional photographers. Also, to allow your camera to determine correlating aperture and to figure out shutter speed, try setting it to shutter priority. Moreover, considering the condition, decide if you should set up some stops in terms of EV compensation. As you follow this tip for winter sport photography, take some test shots and in case the image is too dark, step up two or more stops until the image is adequately brightened.

Color Temperature/Lighting

Lighting is important for photography. Regardless of whether you are shooting inside a house or if its outdoor winter photography, the consideration will remain the same except for just one thing. During winters, there is more UV light. This means, that your photographs are more likely to take on a cyan/blue cast. While you can always edit your pictures later and control the light factor, there are two ways you can combat this light issue right there. First, you may put on your lenses a UV filters or secondly; if you are photographing with a digital camera, you may manually fix the white balance. However, if you are unaware of white balance settings then remove auto white balance and fix it to cloudy bright or simple cloudy as per the conditions.

Help of a Friend

Generally, friends are snowboarders or skiers who are always willing to go down slopes for you. This is the perfect chance to capture the pictures the way you like them to be, especially if you are hesitant of photographing strangers. This is the most effective tip for winter sport photography as your friend can easily coordinate and adjust the action as per your needs. They know your shooting spot and can aim their actions accordingly to produce some awesome winter sport pictures.

Whether you want to capture the bursting snow, a spattering of snow or may be performing a helicopter above the head, if you bring some right friends with you to capture amazing winter sport pictures, then you will not be disappointed.

The bottom line

Try all of these amazing tips for awesome winter sport photography and capture the most exciting moments of winter sports. While winter sport photography is difficult for beginners, don’t forget to take a break and meanwhile capture some great lifestyle portraits. After all, winter sport photography is not just about capturing the perfect move, but also to capture the feel of excitement and winter sport spirit.