One of the highlights of my China photo tour is the incredible snow and ice festival in Harbin. Huge structures are built out of blocks of ice taken from the river that runs through the city, and at night the colored florescent tubes that are inserted into the ice transforms the scene into an unbelievable fantasy. To capture the color, the detail, and the visual impact, I used a tripod, the mirror lockup feature (to eliminate vibration in the camera), 200 ISO, the self-timer set on 2 seconds (or you could use a cable release), and auto white balance. I took the picture above with a 14mm lens, while I shot the image below from the top of one of the ice structrues with a 70-200mm lens plus a 1.4x teleconverter.
On my right hand, I wore only a glover liner so I had dexterity with my fingers to operatre the camera. To keep my fingers from hurting in the subzero temperatures, I had four chemical heat packets in my coat pocket that provided enough warmth. When I wasn't shooting, I held the packets tightly in the pocket. That solved the problem of trying to work the camera's controls with a bulky glove or mitten.
