Flash photography can seem like something of a dark art to begin with. Pop-up, hot-shoe mounted, remote, fill and bounce; there are many ways a photographer can use flash to control the exposure and look of a photo. It is more complicated than ambient light photography so before you begin experimenting, make sure you have a good understanding of all the basics of exposure; shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

In ski photography, flash is used in two key ways. Firstly, as a substitute for ambient light for instance shooting rails at night, or tree skiing on a cloudy day.   And secondly as “fill flash” to supplement the ambient light and fill in dark shadow areas where strong sunshine is creating undesirably high contrast or “harsh” light in the image.

If you have a DSLR then you will almost certainly have a pop-up flash. These are of very limited use for shooting action photos though. Partly because of the lack of control you are given over the settings, and partly because they are very low powered and only have a useful range of about 10ft. Up to this distance you can successfully use them for fill flash on static subjects but if you are serious about taking good photos then you need to buy a separate flash. Your camera won’t know that you are shooting action so be wary of it’s automatic use of the pop-up in some situations. It’s better to turn it off completely until you know that you need it.

With a hot-shoe mounted flash you are beginning to have the necessary control needed to start shooting some ski photos. These flashes have extremely complex “brains” inside them that evaluate the necessary flash output depending on the light situation. If you always have your flash set to automatic though, you will never learn anything new and I guarantee you that you are not getting the best possible photo.

Whatever type of flash you use, your camera will limit your shutter speed to around 1/250th or slower. For an evenly lit subject, the entire burst of light from the flash needs to occur during the fraction of a second that the shutter is completely open. This maximum shutter speed is called the x-sync and using a speed faster than this can result in a photo that displays dark bands of un-flashed areas. Some hot-shoe mounted flashes have a “ high speed sync” mode that does allow the flash to sync with the shutter at faster speeds. This is achieved by greatly reducing the power output of the flash, which in-turn shortens the duration of the flash burst. Less power means you need to get much closer to your subject so whilst it’s good to know how to use this mode, it’s not always the answer and careful setting of your camera and flash settings can often yield a better result.

In flash photography you effectively control two exposures at the same time. The first is the ambient light exposure, controlled by your shutter speed. The second is your flash exposure controlled by your aperture or by adjusting your flash power. As the shutter curtains open to fully reveal the camera sensor, your flash fires to “paint” your skier into the scene with a burst of light. The duration of this flash is much faster than the shutter speed though so the remaining time after the flash burst has fired, is left for the ambient light to “paint” in the background of the photo before the shutter curtains have fully closed. The action in the photo is frozen by the burst of light from the flash, and not by your shutter.

A single on camera flash is convenient, and a good starting point, but once you have mastered that the next step to creating professional looking shots is to learn about off-camera lighting. With today’s technology, the number of off camera flashes that you can add to a scene is almost endless. Radio transmitters attach to the camera and send a wireless signal to a receiver that mounts to your flash, allowing you to place it exactly where you want to capture the best shot. Many of my ski photos use 5 or more flashes synced to fire simultaneously and some guys take it even further than that. That much equipment is beyond the realms of most enthusiastic photographers but you can create incredible photos with careful placement of only one or two strobes. Learning to use off-camera flash creates those angles between the light and the camera that introduces shadows and texture to the scene, helping you to get a more realistic and three-dimensional look.

Techniques for multiple flash use and more information on x-sync and flash duration will appear in a separate article on this site in the near future.

Some of my lenses

Continuing on with my Snow photos 101 section, by far the most common question in my in-box is “what camera or lens should i get?”.  You can view the equipment that I use HERE, but this doesn’t mean that you need all of this to make some great ski or snowboard photos.

Lenses

A professional ski photographer will own lenses that range from a 15mm fisheye all the way up to a 300mm telephoto lens.  Different shooting situations require different setups and they aren’t necessarily all carried at the same time.  By far my most used lens is my 70-200mm zoom lens so something in that range would be a wise choice.  When you are deciding which equipment to invest in, bear in mind that camera technology is evolving at a frantic pace.  Whichever camera you choose now, will be outdated in a years time. Lens technology on the other hand moves at a much more sedate pace.  Very little has changed over the last 10 years aside from the addition of image stabilization to a few lenses.  It therefore makes sense to spend as much as you can on your glass, if you treat it properly a good lens can last you a decade.  Typically you will see a more noticeable improvement in image quality by using higher quality glass, than you would with using a more expensive SLR camera.

Picking a single lens that covers the whole focal length range you need is not the best solution. The larger the zoom range the lesser the image quality so try and split it up into at least 2 or 3 lenses.  A wide-angle zoom such as a 17-40mm or 18-55mm and then a telephoto zoom in the 70-200 range will have you covered for most things.  Once you have mastered these, you can add specialized lenses to your lineup, like a fisheye or large aperture prime lens like the 50mm f1.8.  Prime lenses, those with a fixed focal length, will always yield a sharper photo than their zoom counterparts, but most ski photographers value the portability of a few zooms over a large collection of primes.

Cameras

What camera should I get?  There is no one right answer to this question; a good photographer can make a good photo with almost any camera. Don’t get sucked into the megapixel race though, the majority of images you see in ski or snowboard magazines up to 2009 will have been shot at either 8MP or 10MP and as you will have seen, that’s more than enough for most users.  I would however recommend sticking to the 2 big brands, Nikon and Canon.  Both companies make exceptional sports cameras for professional users and many of the features filter down lower in their product line for beginner and advanced photographers.

Readers of SBC Skier in Canada this year will have seen my series of ski photography tips.  I have decided to put together a new section on my blog which initially starts off with the beginner tips featured in SBC Skier and then moves on further to more advanced information for readers looking for a a little more in-depth info.  Every few weeks I will add a new section to the tips until I have covered the things that most people ask me about.  Hopefully by the end there will be a good collection of information for people to reference.

If your ski photos look flat and the snow looks featureless, try shooting them early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun is lower in the sky. This will create shadows on the snow and reveal details and textures that are not apparent when the sun is overhead at midday. On a clear day much darker and richer colors will come out in the sky.

For the same reason, try to avoid having the sun directly behind you when you shoot. Creating an angle, even a small one, between you and the sun will introduce more contrast into the brighter areas of your shot by revealing shadows behind objects such as snow drifts, ridges, trees and even individual crystals of snow.

A common miss-conception is that you should never shoot into the sun. Whilst that might apply to some aspects of photography, it can be a great way to bring a dramatic look to your ski photos by creating a back-lit spray of powder or a silhouette against the sky.

Composition

The rule of thirds states that compositional elements and points of interest in a photo should be aligned with either the lines or the intersecting points of an imaginary 3×3 grid on top of your photo (figure 1).

Composing your photos in this way will usually create nicely balanced images that are easier on the eye. From figure 1 you can see that the centre of the photo contains no intersection and no line. A common mistake is to put your subject right in the centre of the photo but aesthetically this rarely works well. Try lining up horizons with one of the horizontal lines or putting your skier subjects at the intersecting points and you will come away with a much more pleasing image.

The “Rule of Thirds” is not a rule at all though; it’s a guideline. Depending on the content of the image, there might be cases where you can make a good image without it but if you are uncertain how to compose a shot, it’s a great place to start. You can also try and look for lines in the natural environment that will draw the eye towards the intended subject of your photo.

Exposure

Most people have experienced taking a picture of a beautiful snowy scene only to discover that the photo they see on the back of the camera looks dark, dreary and gray. Cameras are designed to expect an average scene with an average brightness and the huge amount of light reflecting off snow goes far above that expected value. The camera will often under-expose the shot, mistakenly thinking that the shot is overly bright when in fact there is just a lot more reflected light than an average situation.

Some smaller cameras have a “snow setting” hidden away in the menu, be sure to use this if your camera doesn’t have any manual settings. If you are using an SLR camera and shooting on semi-automatic settings like aperture or shutter priority, you can use your cameras “exposure compensation” function to dial in an adjustment to your exposures. The adjustment will vary depending on the brightness of the day so experiment and try to understand how your camera reacts do different situations, every camera is different. Learning how to read the histogram on the camera will let you know when you have nailed the exposure correctly.

(The use of the histogram and the theories behind light metering go far beyond the scope of this first article. If you are seeking more information please read my longer essay on the subject, available on the website in the coming months.)

Remember photography is about being creative; there are very few hard and fast rules, only guidelines. Get out there, experiment and have fun but these few simple tips will get you off to a good start.