Face shots all day

Shot this on tuesday midday in very low light while it was snowing. These combination's seem to occur quite often up here at the mt baker ski area. The skiing side of me want to beat up the photography side of me when I complain about this sort of thing; But I was wondering if anyone had some ideas or pointers on the best settings to use to get some more contrast or detail in these conditions.

D80 tamron 28-200mm @85mm
f/5.3 1/2500 iso500

Over expose it but at least a couple of stops to get the snow white.

Try fill lighting with flash, either the pop-up or an sb. Experiment with the flash exposure compensation.

Spot meter the snow and open up 1-3 stops. (As has been mentioned...)

I'm guessing, but +2 on the exposure comp and -1 on the flash exposure comp will probably dramatically improve these shots.

Often times a very gray day like this favors black and white. I would up the brightness a bit and convert it to black and white to get that moody stormy look. Maybe pull back a bit too in order to take in more of the surroundings and terrain. The tree is also distracting being directly behind the guy. Hope that helps a bit! The snow looks amazing for riding

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to use the on board flash (cannot quite afford a sb at the moment). I also raised the exposure in photoshop raw and that did seem to help a little. Maybe i'll just stick to tree skiing in flat light.

Bag the flash, your "averaging meter" in your camera, averages the color of white down to gray. Get it? Gray is the average of white and black. If you shoot this with a flash you'll have a white spot in a dark photo. If you expose correctly for snow, overexpose 2 or 3 stops you will have exposed correctly for the scene.

Going up tomorrow. Supposed to puke up to 20 inches over night. Conditions will be optimum for learning. I'll report back with my findings.

Exactly as noted above. If your shooting at 1/2500 your meter is getting fooled by just how white the photo is. (Very cool shot!)