1
Winter stories
Look for scenes where
people or animals are being
forced to cope with theonset of extreme weather.
This can be anything from
a rainy urban street, full of
people with umbrellas, to
a frozen field full of sheep
in the winter countryside.2
Fresh snow
You can’t beat a fresh fall of
overnight snow, but you’ve
got to get out early while it’sstill pristine. Watch your
exposures, too: your
camera’s meter will think
there is more light than
there really is, so dial in +1
exposure compensation
to avoid bleaching out
the highlight areas.3
Polariser problems
A polariser is a really useful
tool for boosting contrast
and colour saturation – but
on a bright winter’s day
with a deep blue sky, it can
sometimes over-polarise a
blue sky, turning it almost
black. Use it with care.4
Shoot down
Ice and frost can make an
artwork out of anything,
from a leaf on the ground to
a frozen puddle. Shooting
directly down from overhead and making sure you
keep the camera parallel to
the ground can yield some
interesting winter abstracts.5
Bleak mono
If you’re out shooting
landscapes on a bleak winter
day, opt for a stripped back
black-and-white approach to
emphasise the look and feel.
Accentuate the moodiness
of the scene with a strong
contrast between your
light and dark tones.6
Accent colour
Even in deep winter you can
find little pockets of colour in
the natural word, such as red
berries encased in ice but
still clinging to a twig. Isolate
this colour from a less
saturated background
using a macro lens.Six ways to shoot...
Winter scenes
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com DECEMBER 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^97
4K in the frame
Q
I am going to
upgrade my DSLR,
with a view toshooting stills and some
video. How important
is 4K capture?
Keith Day
A
This very much depends on
what your video needs are,
Keith. If you are intending to
use your new DSLR to shoot
a lot of high-quality video, 4K will give
you the best possible quality, plus
the option of cropping the 4K frame
and still having Full HD.
However, 4K comes with downsides. Even
a relatively short clip gives you a huge file
size; unless you have a lot of storage
capacity, both while shooting and back at
the computer, that large file can be an issue.
You will also need a powerful computer just
to edit it. Also, when you shoot at 4K, the
focal length is cropped. That’s not a deal
breaker, but it’s a bit annoying. The thing to
remember, while 4K is the buzzword in the
video world, it doesn’t mean that everybody
is shooting with it. Full HD, which is standard
with DSLRs now, will give you excellent
quality for most uses I can think of.
My view is that unless you have a clear
commercial reason for deliberately optingfor a camera with 4K, it’s not absolutely
essential. If there is a camera you like, that
does everything you want it to do as a stills
camera, is within your budget and just
happens to be 4K-enabled, then great –
buy it. If you have to spend a lot more
than you intended just to get a model that
gives you 4K, it’s probably not worth it.4K video may be trendy, but
it’s not necessarily essential.