Hi, I am leaving for Yellowstone in the near future to take pictures of the black wolves in the snow. I was there last year and had to "fix" a good many of my pictures due to the exposure. Does the same rule apply to shooting in the snow with digital as with film? With film don't you underexpose by two stops or is it the other way around?
Help>!

The bright white of the snow will tend to throw your exposure readings out leading to a general under exposure as the meter tries to render the snow as mid-grey. You need to compensate by giving more exposure but it's difficult to say exactly how much. This will depend on how much snow there is in your picture compared to other tones. If you are shooting RAW files you get quite a bit of latitude with exposure and a simple compensation of ,say one stop over, would probably get you out of trouble. If you are shooting straight to jpeg then your exposures will need to be more precise. Try to take a light reading from something which you want to render as a mid-tone in your picture.

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I presume the same would be true for other bright locations, on the beach in direct sunlight for example. We don't get a lot of snow where I am, but we do have a lot of sunny beaches... Although I don't know why I'm asking, because there aren't many engines on the beach.

It's not so much about the brightness of the sun as the reflective quality of the snow. I suppose if you had very white sand or a white wall, you might experience a similar effect, but a normal sunny day will not need this kind of correction. Although you do have to watch the highlights in any high contrast situation.

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