Snowflakes

One of the upsides to a full day of the right type of snow, is pulling out the close-up lens and trying to photograph some snowflakes.





From past experimenting I've found that the snow has to be just the right consistency. Basically, dry and light so that each flake sits on top of the one below, creating small pockets of air.





Using an external light source, one can angle the light to reflect across the plane of the snowflake, causing it to shine.





Or to catch edges, angles and curves by directing the light to the side of a pile of snow.



I've never had any luck doing this when the snow is heavy (big, wet flakes), dense, well-packed, old (not fresh), or during the day. As for technical bits, for all these photos I used my old camera, the D70s (I've been having some shutter trouble with the D300 lately), my trusty old Sigma 50mmƒ2.8 lens and a basic desk lamp with a bendable neck. As for camera settings, I used manual focus, manual exposure with aperture set at ƒ5.6, shutter speed based on the internal light meter and iso at 200. All were processed in Lightroom. The blue tint added by setting the white balance to tungsten then adjusting the temperature (blue/yellow slider) to the right a tad.



Here are some I took a few years ago: