exposing for Snow

[duncan22]

The advice to increase exposure when taking photographs in Snowy conditions is clearly correct but I can not understand the logic of it ?
The more light there is, it would seem to be logical that the exposure would need to be less, not more.
There is something really simple here that I am clearly not understanding ?

[Stormsong]

It helps to over-expose by a few stops when shooting snow. This is because, as I understand it, the camera's white balance setting will 'read' or interpret the snow as grey, rather than white. I have found the same applies when shooting against a white backdrop or wall - have over-exposed shots taken with a dominant white background by two or three stops and the white wall/background comes out as white, rather than grey. Hope this is of some help.

Regards,
Denise

[OldBoy]

When the camera takes a reading of the scene it tries to get a midtone grey, so when photographing a white scene it can make it look a bit grey rather than white. To compensate for this you increase the exposure, so the picture looks more white.

To be honest I don't do this for snow shots as I find the camera does a pretty good job on it's own. Only a small tweak in curves is all I usuall need. After taking the shot I check the histogram on the camera and adjust exposure compensation as required.

[GeoffWessex]

It's generally (I think) accepted that an exposure increase (by way of the Exposure Compensation) of up to 1 and 2/3rds stops is about right (that being in bright, sunlit snow). Usually it's ok with one stop.
All that white is normally telling the camera that only a short exposure is enough.... but then you'd underexpose anything else that's in the shot. So you need to give it more.

[duncan22]

Originally Posted by OldBoy

When the camera takes a reading of the scene it tries to get a midtone grey, so when photographing a white scene it can make it look a bit grey rather than white. To compensate for this you increase the exposure, so the picture looks more white.

To be honest I don't do this for snow shots as I find the camera does a pretty good job on it's own. Only a small tweak in curves is all I usuall need. After taking the shot I check the histogram on the camera and adjust exposure compensation as required.

Thanks for the answers but the above was of particular interest to me as I had taken a number of shots using RAW mode in snowy conditions using normal exposure along with other shots of the same scene increasing it by half to 1 stop but using ACR in photoshop and doing a few adjustments (fill light being one) & Increasing the exposure was another, got me the white looking photos I was after.

I assume (but could be wrong) that the software provided with all Canon SLR cameras comes with software that could achieve the same effect.

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by duncan22

I assume (but could be wrong) that the software provided with all Canon SLR cameras comes with software that could achieve the same effect.

Your assumption is correct Duncan