What's the best way to photograph glaicers in Alaska?

I want to make sure the blue of the glaciers pop in my photographs. I will be cruising past Hubbard bay, Glacier bay and going to Mendenhall Glacier.

Any suggestions for settings on my camera? I will be using a newly purchased Cannon Rebel 4ti. I have seen friends photographs of their vacation to Alaska and the glaciers appear gray.

I would like to practice some snow shots before the snow melts in the area I am from.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

The blue is the reflection of the sun as snow/ice can not reflect other colours. If it is sunny, you should get the blue in your shots. I have amazing colour from sunny days. They are dull on the cloudy days.

never shot a glacier yet, but I would think you would do this, shoot off auto, shoot off auto White Balance, use a Circular Polarizing filter. if you Play with white balance settings you should figure out the best colors. I have been told sunrise or sunset is best for very colorful shots

John

Make your best guess re settings and shoot RAW. Then you can fix any problems later although try to make your initial shot as good as possible.

DON

The glacier blue color is also determined by the light. They say you can see the blue better on a day without bright sun.

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Heavy overcast is best, use your histogram function to fine tune exposer. Use manual and expect to overexpose 1 - 2 stops. Shoot raw if you can and adjust for final image.

Bright sunlight causes too much white blowout and you lose texture.

The one thing that you have no control over is the weather. May luck be with you.

framer

If it is sunny, underexpose by a stop (-1.0 on your exposure compensation) to force you camera away from averaging the bright snow. "Beach" or "Snow" modes in the auto settings will work too.

On an overcast day, you can pretty much trust your camera's exposure system to do what it needs to do. Your images may look a bit dingy because of the low contrast brought on by the diffused cloudy light, but minor adjustments can easily restore the contrast and bring out the color. Below are before and after versions of the same image with literally 10 seconds worth of adjustment for contrast and saturation on the original JPEG (not the rather over-hyped RAW).

Out of camera.

With adjustment

Enjoy your trip.

Dave

When we see snow and ice, the scene is largely white, consisting of far more highlights than shadows so we frequently need to over-expose the scene, that is to give the sensor more light than the light meter says that it needs.

If it is sunny, underexpose by a stop (-1.0 on your exposure compensation) to force you camera away from averaging the bright snow. "Beach" or "Snow" modes in the auto settings will work too.

 

 

Dave

When we see snow and ice, the scene is largely white, consisting of far more highlights than shadows so we frequently need to over-expose the scene, that is to give the sensor more light than the light meter says that it needs.

MY MISTAKE...I meant OVER-expose +1 on the compensation!

Thanks for catching that!

(How long have I been doing this camera thing??:o)

Dave

I am new to DSLR. I keep hearing about the term "raw" what exactly does this mean?

Most fairly "high end" DSLRs have several shooting modes: jpg, tiff, raw, and raw + jpg (two images)

Photographers shoot in "RAW" mode to capture more image information in each digital image without any adjustments made by the camera software. You end up with a very high quality and very adjustable image with lots of pixels (size of file issue). JPG files are compressed files with your camera's "built-in" adjustments to the images. RAW images must be processed just like a negative by programs such as Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw with their myriad of possible adjustments. Jpgs are ready for sending to friends right from the camera.

Shooting in "RAW" mode requires bigger storage cards capacity with higher speed to save the much larger images.

From Wikipedia:

Like a photographic negative, a raw digital image may have a wider dynamic range or color gamut than the eventual final image format, and it preserves most of the information of the captured image. The purpose of raw image formats is to save, with minimum loss of information, data obtained from the sensor, and the conditions surrounding the capturing of the image (the metadata).

When we see snow and ice, the scene is largely white, consisting of far more highlights than shadows so we frequently need to over-expose the scene, that is to give the sensor more light than the light meter says that it needs.

That is true, but I found on our recent trip to Antarctica that when I was photographing large expanses of ice (e.g., big icebergs) on sunny days in particular, I actually needed to underexpose or I would have really blown highlights.

That is true, but I found on our recent trip to Antarctica that when I was photographing large expanses of ice (e.g., big icebergs) on sunny days in particular, I actually needed to underexpose or I would have really blown highlights.

That's the problem with bright light on snow and why the darker blue does not show as well under that condition. If you under expose not to blowout your bright areas you lose darker shadow detail. It's a lose, lose.

You really need to use a color histagram if your camera has that funtion to fine tune your exposer.

framer

Make your best guess re settings and shoot RAW. Then you can fix any problems later although try to make your initial shot as good as possible.

 

DON

^ This. A thousand times, this. But you'll need a photo editing program capable of manipulating RAW files. Lightroom is a good value if you don't have full-blown Photoshop. But all that is moot if your camera doesn't shoot RAW in the first place.

I took these in May 2012 on a cloudy day. It gives you an idea of what to expect when the weather is less than perfect. The blue really stands out in a couple of the pictures.

Most fairly "high end" DSLRs have several shooting modes: jpg, tiff, raw, and raw + jpg (two images)

 

Photographers shoot in "RAW" mode to capture more image information in each digital image without any adjustments made by the camera software. You end up with a very high quality and very adjustable image with lots of pixels (size of file issue). JPG files are compressed files with your camera's "built-in" adjustments to the images. RAW images must be processed just like a negative by programs such as Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw with their myriad of possible adjustments. Jpgs are ready for sending to friends right from the camera.

 

Shooting in "RAW" mode requires bigger storage cards capacity with higher speed to save the much larger images

I asked this in another thread too..

Is it best to shoot in just "RAW" or "RAW + JPEG"

I asked this in another thread too..

Is it best to shoot in just "RAW" or "RAW + JPEG"

Doesn't hurt any to shoot both RAW+JPEG.

I had always used a ND filter for Alaskan iceberg/glacier shots.

I asked this in another thread too..

Is it best to shoot in just "RAW" or "RAW + JPEG"

Doesn't hurt any to shoot both RAW+JPEG.

Agreed, though doing so will eat up more space on a card. If you have enough room, fire away. FWIW, I took 44GB-worth of cards on a 7-night itinerary with 3 days in the Vancouver area and Denali on either end. I used almost 36GB, shooting 100% RAW with a Canon 50D.

Agreed, though doing so will eat up more space on a card. If you have enough room, fire away. FWIW, I took 44GB-worth of cards on a 7-night itinerary with 3 days in the Vancouver area and Denali on either end. I used almost 36GB, shooting 100% RAW with a Canon 50D.

For my May 17th Solstice out of Seattle,(7 day), I picked up four 16GB Sandisk cards when Costco had them on sale last month. I am thinking of picking up 2-3 more. One for each day. That would give me about 96GB (+). I have a Nikon D3200, with an 18-55 and 55-200 lenses. I read on here where someone just said to shoot shoot shoot....And since we do not use film anymore, why not. With digital, just put them all on the computer then go thru them and delete the ones you do not want.

Thanks for the help.

Erik (Vonodin) pointed me to this thread (I'm on the same cruise). Lots of good information, glad I stopped by.

I will be shooting with a Nikon D5100 with 18-55mm and 55-200mm on ship and in port and a Nikon AW100 on excursions. I received the AW100 for Christmas and have used it a little around town to get use to it - so this will be my crash course. Any suggestions as far as settings to get the best pictures?

RAW images must be processed just like a negative by programs such as Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw with their myriad of possible adjustments. [/url]).

Since the OP posted they had a Canon T4i I thought it would be well served to let them know that the software that came w/ the camera (assuming it was bought new or used w/ all accessories) can process RAW images. I used it for awhile before I broke down and bought Lightroom. In the meantime though Canon DPP works pretty well, but it doesn't have all the options a Lightroom or Photoshop does.

I took these in May 2012 on a cloudy day. It gives you an idea of what to expect when the weather is less than perfect. The blue really stands out in a couple of the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow!!! Beautiful photos,sailing may 17 2013,

Photoshop CS6 users can also use Adjustments ----> Selective Color to bring out individual colors.

Nice shots... I really want to go on an Alaskan cruise to see the glaciers... hopefully one day... I agree with the other posters, use your exposure compensation +1-2 stops to get properly exposed whites (check your histogram to make your you're not blowing your highlights). For canon users look at using the highlight priority setting to help preserve your highlights.

Shoot RAW, you'll be amazed how much more leeway you get out of RAW files. I have tons of CF cards, but I always bring my hyper drive with me as a backup... I copy the contents of each of my CF cards to the drive, and rotate CF cards...