Snow Scene shooting mode

The Snow scene shooting mode is, as the name suggests, a mode to use when shooting pictures of snow.

Snow reflects a lot of light and fools cameras into under exposing so the shot comes out dark. When snow is recorded dark it looks grey, blue or orange depending on the time of day and weather conditions. The Snow scene mode increases the exposure slightly to compensate but also adjusts the white balance to make the snow look whiter. This mode is sometimes combined with a Beach scene mode which causes similar exposure problems for a camera.













Two shots taken with the Olympus mju 7010. Left is on auto, right is with Snow Scene shooting mode selected, look how the dull grey colour has been warmed up to give a more pleasing result.

What Snow scene mode is good for
Landscape photography where there is a blanket of snow covering the scene.

Good points
Produces brighter more realistic snow photos

Bad points
None that we can think of

Compact cameras with Snow Scene Mode
There are too many to mention. To see if your has this mode go to your picture/scene mode setting and scroll through the options. Snow scene mode will usually appear halfway down the list.