Shooting Ice Covered Trees?

[twistedphrame]

So I finally was able to get out of the house and take some photos (we had alot of freezing rain and ice last few days) and Once yo get about 900+ feet above town up into the mountains, all the trees are covered in about 1/8 inch of ice making everything look like its made out of glass. It's an amazing sight but I continue to fail (miserably) at shooting this sort of situation. What would be the best way to get that glass look? I'm really at a loss so any advice is more than welcome.





The only filters I have are a UV Haze and a Circular Polarizer, if that matters?





Many thanks,



~Jordan

[Bryan Carnathan]

Do you havea few samples to share with us? It might be easier to give advice if we have something to start from.


For starters, try different lighting angles (including back-lit)and different times of the day -especially early and late.

[twistedphrame]

Well, I remember deleting most of them in camera since I was close to the end of my memory card and didn't feel like going into my pack to change it unless it was necessary.


This is the only one I kept and I edite quite a bit in lightroom2. I took down the exposure in the road a WHOLE lot so it wasn't that white salt look, took down the sky in the upper left about half as much to try and get those few trees not quite so blown from all the clouds. brought the green in the cedars out a bit and it looks like i went to far into the reds on tones looking at this now. If you look at it though the trees seem just caked with snow not shiny ice, if i remember the sun was shining on them at the time I took this from over my left shoulder.


Shot Settings:


Camera: Xti


Lens: 24-70 f/2.8L


SS: 1/100 (Handheld)


Ap: 5.6








~Jordan

[Bryan Carnathan]

I've been thinking about this for awhile. I think your capture is nice. I don't know how you could have taken that particular shot much better than you did.


To get a different look to the ice, try shooting with the light hitting it from different directions and with different intensities. You might like back-lit shots. You might also like closer shots - individual ice-covered branches will be larger and show the thickness better.

[Sean Setters]

I think Bryan hit the nail on the head on this one--shoot at least one branch closer so that the detail of the ice covered branches is more obvious to the viewer. You also might want to expose a stop higher (as the lightness of the subject might cause the camera to shoot more gray than white).

[twistedphrame]

Thanks guys, I'll give that a try next ice storm if I'm not away at school. I've tried shooting branches before but I've always done it in a way that you can't really see any other trees in the background, I think that, with the backlighting may just do the trick.