My pics have a yellow cast

merrie · 08-14-2009, 08:13 PM

Help! I am taking pictures for a Bar Mitzvah tomorrow and my test pics have a yellow/amber tint. The room is the Holiday Inn and it is lit with only large chanderliers. I have tried average white balance and incandescent. I am also using a flash. I also tried changing my focusing from evaluative to center and that doesn't have much effect either. Any suggestions?

**Frog** · 08-14-2009, 09:09 PM

Are you shooting raw?
Have you tried white balance for flash?

**Franglais** · 08-14-2009, 10:47 PM

Note: This is my original reply when I thought that "chandeliers" meant candles. It's the right reply for a candle-lit scene

There is no way you're going to get a perfect result at such short notice. You are faced with three problems:

1. Ambient lighting is very low so you are obliged to use a second light source (flash). The colour of the "white" light from the two sources is not the same, so whatever you do, you're going to get a colour cast.
2. Your camera's "incandescent" colour balance setting is intended for photographic light bulbs, which have a colour temperature of about 3200K. A typical candle has a colour temperature of about 1900K - much redder. This is why you're getting a yellow cast even on incandescent setting
3. Your camera's flash is producing light with a colour temperature of 6000K. This is close to daylight. It's much bluer than candle light

Here's what I would do:

1. Fit an incandescent colour-correcting filter on your flash (one was supplied with my Nikon SB800, but I've also bought a stock of large sheets that I cut to size)
2. Set the camera to incandescent light balance, to match the filtered flash. The flash is going to be the primary light source. The candle light will still look yellow but this is not unpleasant on people
3. Bounce the flash light off the ceiling so it illuminates the room and not just the person in front of me.
4. Use a lens with a wide aperture (f2.8) and a high ISO setting (1600-3200). My main light is the flash but I want the candle light to be secondary

If you're in the worst case with an on-camera flash and no light filters then I would set the light balance to Flash, as Frog says. The candle light will look yellow-red but your main subject illuminated by the flash will look neutral. Don't set the light balance to Incandescent - this makes the light from your flash look blue, which is horrible for people

If you have an available-light lens (f1.8) and you can do without flash then you can often fine-tune the light temperature in Kelvins. Try 1900 for candles

Note: Now I see that "chandeliers" might mean light bulbs in chandeliers, I add the following:

The "incandescent" light balance setting is for 3200K photofloods. The light bulbs in the chandelier probably have lower temperature. You can fine-tune this is most DSLR's.

However if you're going to use flash without an incandescent colour correcting filter on the flash then I would still use Flash colour balance due to the blue effect I described earlier

readingr · 08-15-2009, 02:46 AM

Charles, your answer made me smile - I was envisaging you being as old as the Laughing Cavalier :-)

Now for some help - Take a sheet of A4 plain white paper and take a few shots of it in the lighting conditions with and/or without flash so that you can do a buld correction in PP. Make sure you take the pictures in RAW.

Roger R.

dhyravy · 08-15-2009, 06:23 AM

If you're using flash you aren't overcoming the ambient light. The camera is probably in Auto WB and if you are using a dedicated flash made for your camera the camera is choosing a WB for flash. Do not use Auto ISO. Set the ISO at ~200 and the aperture at ~f5.6 or so. That will force the flash to be the dominant light source when using TTL.

**Franglais** · 08-15-2009, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by readingr

Charles, your answer made me smile - I was envisaging you being as old as the Laughing Cavalier :-)

You mean about the candles? I did have my reasons.

When I saw the post I thought - Bar Mitzvah > Jewish > Saturday = Chabat. For some very religious people this means no electricity on Saturdays. Seriously. My ex-wife was Jewish and some of her friends really did it. Even candles is a transformation but I think they pass.

Then I saw that the event wasn't in the synagogue or in somebody's house but in the Holiday Inn and candles didn't seem likely.

gryphonslair99 · 08-15-2009, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merrie

Help! I am taking pictures for a Bar Mitzvah tomorrow and my test pics have a yellow/amber tint. The room is the Holiday Inn and it is lit with only large chanderliers. I have tried average white balance and incandescent. I am also using a flash. I also tried changing my focusing from evaluative to center and that doesn't have much effect either. Any suggestions?

This is where a custom white balance can be very helpful. One of these, learn to use it and it will not be an issue again.

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