Deep Powder With The 5D Mk II

[Photo-John]

I shot an awesome powder day this past weekend with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Jenni and I got to do a "First Tracks" session on Saturday at The Canyons resort in Park City. First Tracks meant we were on the lift at 7:30 AM, a couple of hours before the lifts opened to the public. We were gonna let the opportunity pass until it started snowing early last week. And kept snowing. Saturday morning when we woke up it was dumping. And it didn't stop until about noon. We had 5 or 6 inches of fresh that morning, on top of 8 inches from the day before. And one of the surprise benefits of the First Tracks session was getting showed the guides' private stashes. That's where these two photos were taken. The first time I watched Jenni hit this slope I kept thinking she'd gone down. But she was just blowing up so much snow I couldn't see her.

We did two runs here for photos and these two are part of a sequential burst from the first run. After these two the photos are nothing but white. On the next run she blasted me with snow, plastered the camera and filled up the small camera bag I forgot to close. Whoops! Good thing the 5D Mk II and 24-105L lens have some weather sealing

Just to be clear, these two images are heavily processed. They each have three Photoshop levels adjustment layers and a curve adjustment layer. I also used Uwe Steinmueller's super sauce Highlight Resolver Photoshop script to help pull out highlight details. Holding detail in flat light snow photos is really difficult. The snow plume detail is critical to these images. Careful exposure and then careful PS optimization are mandatory for photos like this.

[Jimmy B]

I have read your initial take on the 5DM2 on another thread. I do like what you have posted John. The contrast of her green snow outfit and the snow is really nice.
A FF body is on my off in the distant future list.
Jimmy B

[jacobovs]

This is a really nice catch. I love the one on the left because you caught the bottom of the board.

[Lori11]

Wow, awesome photo's! I love the first shot!

[Photo-John]

Thanks for the comments. I like the one where you see the board. But I love the one where all you see is the snow pushing up. For me, that one really shows how deep and awesome that day was. I'm finding it's really tough to get photos that really show the depth and the board. Skis are nice because the skier has poles and that gives a little more sense of the actual sport. It's tough to experiment, too. For these shots, it took about 20 minutes or so for each loop because this area was tough to access. And then I'd only be able to set up one burst as she came down. It's not really possible to hike back up a slope like we were on.

[NoKnees]

Nice work... I haven't spent that much time yet with my DSLR out in the snow, but enough to know how hard it can be to get all the details out of a snowy shot without clipping shadows, blowing hightlights, etc... Both flat light and mid-day light are a pain... Nice to see how it's should look!

I'll toss a couple shots up on a spearate thread from when I attempted some mid-day shots a few weeks ago.. This will help people appreciate just how good your shots are.. ;)

I just picked up CS4 recently, so I'll be learning how to do multiple adjustment layers rather than just trying to find a one curve fits all... I can visualize what I want, just have to learn how to do it now..