Photographing in the snow with the Fuji X-E2

The temperature in New York hovered around freezing and at times was a bit too warm for the snow that fell yesterday. With no wind the snow clung heavily on the trees and turned Central Park into a Currier and Ives wonderland. I wanted to have a very small camera kit to work in the park, and settled on my Fuji X-E2, two zooms, and the 14mm lens. It didn't take me long to begin longing for the weather resistant Fuji X-T1 I have on order because with the temperature right around freezing the snow turned to water drops as soon as they hit the camera. At one point some of the buttons on the rear of the X-E2 began performing erratically, as if they had shorted out. Turning off the camera and drying it off restored it to normal in a short time, and I was able to continue shooting the rest of the day.

I had intended to take mostly black and white images to be converted to platinum prints later. As it turned out, I didn't like the way the images converted when I began processing them in the evening. Instead I found they had a very subtle blue tint that I was able to enhance slightly by switching to the wider LAB color space in Photoshop, and giving the colors a little boost. Otherwise, nothing else was done to the colors. They are straight from the camera.

I worked with the camera set to auto exposure plus one stop of exposure compensation for the brightness of the scene.

This was one of the most prolific winter scenes I have ever photographed -- and the easiest thanks to the compact Fuji X camera kit. A few samples are below.