Ice and snow is no match for Dave Blinder with his 16-300mm VC, SP 90mm VC, and 14-150mm Di III lenses.

By Jenn Gidman
Images by Dave Blinder

Before he started taking photos, Dave Blinder wasn't a huge fan of snow. "Like many people, snow wasn't appealing to me when I was out there commuting or shoveling it, getting frostbitten," the New Jersey photographer says. "Then, when I first went out in fresh powder with my camera, I was hooked. I was able to create surreal photographs that we're not used to seeing when we look at snow. And here in Jersey, snow is only on the ground for a certain amount of time, so I want to take advantage of those temporal photographic opportunities while I can."

Dave recently headed out to capture some winter-themed photos. "The beauty of these is that if you live in an area that has winter weather, you don't have to travel far to take these types of images— you can come across similar scenes right in your own backyard," he says. "For this particular series I used the Tamron 16-300mm VC PZD and SP 90mm VC lenses, as well as the 14-150mm Di III lens, Tamron's first Micro Four Thirds lens for compact mirrorless cameras. It's very compact, so I can bring it along in a small case."

Before he heads out into the frigid elements, Dave checks the weather. "If you see snow in the forecast, be the first one out there for the best photo ops," he says. "That's when the snow is fresh and hasn't grayed or melted, and you won't have footprints in the snow marring your shots."

Dave also packs protective items for his gear and for himself. 'Even if your lenses are splashproof or moisture resistant, which many of my Tamron lenses are, always bring a rain sleeve to cover both the lens and the camera," he says. "I also carry a microfiber cloth so I can wick away moisture periodically so it doesn't get into the camera's electronics. And pocket hand-warmers are worth their weight in gold on really cold days."

Subdued winter lighting opens up more time during the day for optimal shooting. "In general, winter light is much less harsh than summer light, so there are more shooting hours," Dave says. "Plus the sunlight is often diffused by the clouds, which is great for detail shots since you won't get shadows and highlights and will have an even level of contrast, —especially important for macro photos. But I also like to head out early in the morning, right after the first light and especially after a snowfall. There's a misty, ethereal light at that time of day that makes photos look magical."

It was during one of these early morning wanderings that Dave stumbled across a boat shown in the first image here on a Long Island, NY, beach. "This is such an eerie, haunting photo," he says. "You can see the sky is just starting to get bright: If you look toward the right, it appears the sun is starting to come above the horizon. The sky is mostly blue predawn, especially in the winter, and how the human eye perceives the scene is a little blue, so that's an authentic tone you see. We have creative judgment as photographers to set the white balance the way we want the viewer to interpret the photo. In this case, by using auto white balance, the image came out more or less the way I actually saw it—blue, but not an exaggerated blue, which wouldn't have made for a believable photo."

This image was a broad shot taken with the 16-300mm lens at 22mm and F/11. "The aperture is very important here," Dave says. "F/11 is one of the best default apertures you can set for a landscape photo on DSLRs. It's a compromise between depth-of-field and overall lens sharpness, giving you very expansive depth-of-field, as well as an ideal amount of detail from foreground to background. I positioned myself behind the grass, which framed the boat, so there's some detail in the grass and also in the trees."

Dave photographed a winding icy lane with the 16-300 at 16mm. "The difference between a standard kit lens (18mm) and this 16mm is actually a significant angle-of-view difference," he says. "This is a broader shot that allows me to create drama by emphasizing the foreground, which is definitely a big plus. My aperture was F/10, so once again I got pretty extensive depth-of-field. A general rule of thumb for landscape focus in an image like this is to set the focus about a third of the way into the scene. That way your foreground will be sharp, and the background remains sharp as well."

For a wintry treescape, Dave used the 14-150 zoom. "The focal length was 107mm, so we're really talking 214mm in DSLR," Dave explains. "That really shows the versatility of this lens, because it's less than 3.5 inches long and acts in a telephoto capacity here. There was a semi-frozen brook in front of me, so I couldn't walk any closer to the trees without getting my feet completely soaked."

Dave took this picture at F/8. "Compact mirrorless cameras have a smaller sensor than DSLRs, so there's a greater depth-of-field because of the smaller chip in the camera," he says. "So F/8 on a mirrorless camera is very similar to F/11 on a typical DSLR; on a full-frame camera it would be equivalent to F/16. I shot this with a +1-1/3 exposure compensation in Aperture Priority mode, metering off the snow. The camera would have wanted to turn the trees gray, so I had to override it so the trees would look white."

And that particular exposure challenge is sure to emerge during a photographer's winter strolls. "My typical walk-around mode in this type of environment is to shoot in Aperture Priority and add at least one full stop of light (+3/3 exposure compensation), because the camera sees a white scene, thinks it's too bright, and wants to make it a gray, neutral exposure," Dave says. "You have to say no for winter scenes, because you want that bright white in these cases."

In terms of the composition, Dave latched onto this scene's symmetry. "A very effective tool in nature photography is when you have a scene that looks almost symmetrical or like a reflection and you can position yourself in the middle of it," he says. "That's what I did here. The trees on either side looked nearly like a mirror image of each other, so I placed myself so I was shooting pretty much down the middle of them. It's pleasing to the eye."

The SP 90mm VC Macro lens allowed Dave to capture what he calls "graphic design" type of photos, artistic images that you can find just by wandering in parks or on nature trails. "The two photos you see here were of leaves I came across while I strolled around town," he says. "Every two leaves are going to fall differently, so when you're using them in an image, you're looking to show shapes and contrasts. You can really create works of art out of these everyday objects in nature."

For the first leaf image shown here, Dave peered into an unexpected place for inspiration: a pair of tire ruts. "There are pockets of air trapped above the ruts, which allow air to run through them," he says. "You can tell the stem of the oak leaf on the left is under the ice by the air bubbles above it. This tight of an image—which is heavily magnified, not cropped—wouldn't have been possible without a macro lens like the 90. I took this photo at F/22 because I needed to get every vein of those leaves in focus."

A frosted leaf in a neighbor's yard offered another chance for Dave to take advantage of the 90mm's macro powers. "This image really shows off the bokeh properties of this lens," he says. "I shot at F/5.6 so I had a good amount of detail in the foreground, since I wanted to emphasize those very sharp ice crisps on the leaf. But it also created a pleasing, out-of-focus background to suggest the subject matter to the viewer without having all that detail throughout the entire image. I used an exposure compensation of +2/3 to create some highlights in the ice as well. And once again, I was able to capture this without having to leave my own neighborhood. All you have to do is keep an eye out for those intimate details—they're all right in front of you."

To see more of Dave Blinder's work, go to http://facebook.com/daveblinderphotography .