Best Practices for shooting in the snow.
•Your camera can take some snow flakes on it but bring some paper towels/small hand towel out with you to blot it as you are shooting.
•Use your lens hood to prevent snow from falling on your lens.
•Bring lens cleaner and a microfiber cloth to clean your lens as you are shooting.
Getting the right exposure for snow scenes:
Why do your images always look so grey when you are shooting snow?
Your camera's meter assumes is exposing for an average of 'middle grey' (18% grey) this is how ALL cameras work. The reality is it is metering for a scene that is much brighter than that. If you trust your meter to properly expose snow then you will wind up with grey snow.
•When shooting 'snow scenes" (75% or more of the frame is filled with white) you MUST 'overexpose' generally by about +1.0-+2.0. Use the +/- exposure compensation if you are shooting in AV or TV mode . If you are shooting Manual mode move your meter to the + side of the exposure scale by using either your f/stop or shutter speed.
•I realize this seems counter intuitive to most people and you will think, if I ‘overexpose’ snow then won’t it be washed out? The answer is no, that’s why it is called ‘compensation. You need to compensate for your camera.