How to avoid this 'blue' look in large halls

[steelerdirtfreak]

This past weekend was the 1st of four straight where I will be shooting banquets in large fire halls (reception halls). These halls all have high ceilings and fluorescent lighting. Almost all of my images came out slightly blue (see attached photo) and it didn't seem to matter whether I had the white balance on auto, fluorescent, or flash.

It's fairly easy to correct with PSE, but I was wondering if there is an easy on-camera fix to adjust for fluorescent lighting?

[another view]

I'm surprised - especially with the WB set to flash. You could do a custom white balance but that's not always going to be 100% right with flash-on-camera work - ambient light will always play a part. You could shoot RAW and batch process but that's not really a "fix".

[livin4lax09]

as far as on-camera goes, the only solution would just to to change your WB settings. but you'd have to compensate for one, flash or flourescent. This is what gelled flashes are for, setting the same WB of the two light sources.

[steelerdirtfreak]

I confess to being totally lost with most indoor flash situations, it's just something that I don't usually have to deal with, so I've never spent much time learning about it.

What are these gelled flashes, and how would I use them?

And what would be the easiest way for me to set a custom WB in one of these halls?

I'm using my SB-800, if that makes a difference.

Would using a Lightsphere help in these cases?

[another view]

What are these gelled flashes, and how would I use them?

And what would be the easiest way for me to set a custom WB in one of these halls?

Gelled flashes are an excellent suggestion. Basically what this does is make the color temp of the flash closer to the ambient artificial light (it's already close to daylight). Sto-Fen makes the Omni-Bounce in colors just for this reason. The green one is for fluorescent lights because they put out a greenish color cast (newer fluorescents are much better than older ones though). If you're using film, especially slide film, take their advice about the filter otherwise use a fluorescent - or better yet custom - white balance with a DSLR.

Expodisc makes a filter that you can't see thru, but will help the camera make a custom WB. They work very well but are expensive. I have had similar results by using the plastic lid from a can of Pringles but doing that hardly looks professional...

[livin4lax09]

gelling flashes takes a very good understanding of color temp and a knowledge of what light sources produce what temp lighting. While I am not close to this, I can tell you what I know. Gelled flashes help to match the color temp of ambient, as AV said. Say you were shooting under incandescent light. if you used your flash, the parts of the image lit by your flash would be the right color, and the ambient parts would be extremely yellow. If you balanced for your ambient, the ambient light would be the correct color but the flash's light would look very blue (this coming from the fact that the flashes temperature is much lower than incandescent, the cooler the light, the bluer. the warmer, the yellower) SO in order to correct for this, people yellow gel the flash (sometimes using omni-bounces as AV also pointed out, depending on your light source) so that the light from the flash is now passing through a yellow source, giving the light a yellow color cast. since the ambient light already has a yellow cast because of it's nature, all of a sudden the light coming from the flash is closer to matching up with the color of the ambient light. Then once you custom WB, or use the incandescent WB setting on your camera, both light sources will be balanced correctly.

To custom WB, one techncique that has served mewell is to do this. Buy a pack of coffee filters, and then carry one around with you. when you have to custom WB, put the coffee filter over your lens, screw the lens shade on so it holds the coffee filter in place, point the lens towards the light source you will be balancing the light for, set the camera to AWB, and shoot about a 1/60 exposure. this will depend on the temp cycle of the light, some prefer to shoot 1/30. Then with your camera menu, select custom WB, and select the image you just took. Then switch your WB to custom WB, and you have the WB you just shot. Hope that helps.

[another view]

A couple more somewhat random thoughts:

Different cameras have different procedures for actually setting a custom white balance. The owner's manual will show you how to do it, but that sounds basically how you do it on the Fuji I have.

The problem with mixed light sources is bigger when there are bigger differences in the light sources (sounds simple enough). When there is a big difference between the ambient light and the flash, the background will look wierd. This is why when you're using a shoe-mounted flash outside for fill, you won't have these problems (mid-day sun and flash are pretty close in color). Just stuff to be aware of...

[mdmc]

The SB800 has fl and tung filters included.
Mark.

[Franglais]

This past weekend was the 1st of four straight where I will be shooting banquets in large fire halls (reception halls). These halls all have high ceilings and fluorescent lighting. Almost all of my images came out slightly blue (see attached photo) and it didn't seem to matter whether I had the white balance on auto, fluorescent, or flash.

It's fairly easy to correct with PSE, but I was wondering if there is an easy on-camera fix to adjust for fluorescent lighting?

It looks like the camera is on Auto WB and has read Flourescent light source but the flash has overpowered the room lighting (see the shadows on the wall) and given the blue dominant.

In this case I would I would:

1. Shoot RAW. It's easy to correct the light balance afterwards
2. Set the camera manually to flash light balance
3. Set the camera ISO to 650 or 800 so that (in typical room lighting) the room lighting is about 1 stop darker than the flash

If the ceiling is white and not too high, I would also experiment with bounce flash, pointing the flash head straight up. I prefer the natural look of bounce flash, though it requires a fresh set of batteries in the SB800.

Charles