I just finished a three thousand mile car trip across eleven of the fifty United States. From Des Moines, Iowa to Amarillo, Texas, to Shasta Lake, California, to Blaine, Washington bizarre weather patterns are creating abnormal winter extremes. Where Mother Nature coats the trees in ice or piles on a few feet of snow, opportunities abound for some gorgeous photos right in your own backyard. While capturing this dose of Mother Nature’s tough love on video or in digital still format is an opportunity not to be passed up, it’s important to keep a few rules of winter photography in mind in order to keep the images looking great and your digital photography and video gear intact. Make note of the five essential tips for shooting digital in the cold.