Group photo in strip light conditions tips?

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vecsri

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Richard Black
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I'll be taking photos of the lads at the station soon, the lighting is that orangy light.
I have a jessops flash gun, which might help.
What F stop or exposure is best for this kind of thing?
Cheers

Any tips welcome really.
 
F-stop and exposure wont make much of a difference to the orangy light, its the whitebalance that you will need to adjust here, I think with striplights you will need to set it to "fluorescent", although using the flash you can set the WB to "flash" take a shot with each WB setting and then select whichever one gives you the better picture..

What gear will you be using?
 
Look into gelling your flash to give the same or simliar colour temperature as the strip lights.
 
dizzledazzle said:
F-stop and exposure wont make much of a difference to the orangy light, its the whitebalance that you will need to adjust here, I think with striplights you will need to set it to "fluorescent", although using the flash you can set the WB to "flash" take a shot with each WB setting and then select whichever one gives you the better picture..

What gear will you be using?
Click to expand...

Nikon D50, 24-70mm F2.8 and a jessops 300 AFDC flash gun.
Bit amature!
 
If they're fluorescent lights, you need to worry about the exposure time as well as the white balance. Fluorescents vary their output at 50Hz in time with the mains frequency, so you need to make sure your shutter speed is 1/50th or a multiple of it (e.g. 1/25th, 1/12th, etc.). Anything else and you'll get a fraction of a cycle, which means the exposure will be off.
 
StewartR said:
If they're fluorescent lights, you need to worry about the exposure time as well as the white balance. Fluorescents vary their output at 50Hz in time with the mains frequency, so you need to make sure your shutter speed is 1/50th or a multiple of it (e.g. 1/25th, 1/12th, etc.). Anything else and you'll get a fraction of a cycle, which means the exposure will be off.
Click to expand...

If you shoot RAW you can adjust the White Balance in editing, after the fact.
 
W.Smith said:
If you shoot RAW you can adjust the White Balance in editing, after the fact.
Click to expand...

Very true but no help if you're mixing light source without colour correction. If he used a flash and set that for the white balance then all part lit and exposed for flash would be fine but the rest which is lit by the strip lights would have a colour cast.
 
StewartR said:
If they're fluorescent lights, you need to worry about the exposure time as well as the white balance. Fluorescents vary their output at 50Hz in time with the mains frequency, so you need to make sure your shutter speed is 1/50th or a multiple of it (e.g. 1/25th, 1/12th, etc.). Anything else and you'll get a fraction of a cycle, which means the exposure will be off.
Click to expand...


Your close man, I know what your trying to say.
I'm not aware of any calculation that will guarentee exposure at the precise moment a fluorescent lamp is fully lit, but I could be wrong.
Fluorescent lamps strobe, unless the ballast in it is high frequency or adjacent lamps lit on a different phase, your as likely to shoot when the lamp is lit, as not lit.
This is only an issue at shutter speeds faster than 1/100th or so where it becomes more and more unreliable the faster you go.

Hold on a minute.....orangey, fluorescents aren't orangey.
Is this outside, sounds like street lighting, mercury vapour, or sodium..
I have no clue what white balance for those, either way they dont strobe like fluorescents.
 
If they are Sodium or or similar then you will have a problem. Sodium lamps effectively put out one colour , yellow. It's not like tungsten where you have a predominance of red in the light compared to the other parts of the spectrum it's just one colour . You won't be able to remove this cast, as there is no other colour in the image.

Using flash may be the only other answer but you may have problems with the flash being powerful enough to cover the group . If you are going to use flash I would suggest you use as higher shutter speed as possible to eliminate the illumination from those yellow lamps. I don't know what camera you are using, but from the flash spec I would think it's a Canon. Check in the manual and see what is the fastest speed you can use flash, I would guess it's about 1/200, but check. Aperture , wide open (!!).

I would seriously try some test shots first just to see what results you'll get.

Sorry I can't be of more help
 
Using nikon Chappers. Odd as the part number 300AFDC is for cannon?
 
vecsri

Same advice applies.
 
Cheers ladies and gentlemen.
 
In the news forum, theres an update for Nikon Capture NX, its detailed on RobGalbraiths page, one of the improvements is -

#
An Active D-Lighting item has been added to RAW adjustments in the Base Adjustments,and Sodium Vapor Lamps and High Temperature Mercury Vapor (7200K) settings have been added.
#

:)
 
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