Novice lighting help

[jetrim]

What you can do immediately - set the white balance manually. Where you found the fluorescent setting is the menu where you'll set a manual white balance. The idea is that you want to shoot something white, so if you remove the loctite and just shoot the background it will adjust exactly for the color temperature of the lights you have now. Do set the third light as suggested, shining on the backdrop from the front. That should cure all your color problems. Set your contrast and saturation to normal (they may not be right out of the box). Set your light metering to spot meter (the dot). Zoom all the way out and set your aperture as low as it will go (probably f/4) this would seem backward, but the lower the f/ number, the more light is allowed to enter which gives you the ability to use faster shutter speeds.

What to do going forward - watch e-bay and craigslist for used studio lights. I recently picked up a set of 4 broncolor heads with a ton of accessory modifiers (softboxes, umbrellas, grids, reflectors, barndoors, gels, diffusers, stands, IR wireless trigger) that fit in a rolling case the size of a full size suitcase, for less than it would cost to buy 2 bare AlienBees heads, and broncolor is the rolls-royce of studio lighting.

BTW For you and anyone else following along, AWB is NOT Auto white balance, it stands for Average White Band, and your background is going dark because the camera's computer is trying to get you subject into the 18% gray tonal range. Further, the higher the f/ stop number the more color saturation occurs, that's another reason to keep it to the lowest number possible if color values are critical.