Unexpected variations in white balance - help please

Gordon Scott

Gordon Scott

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Gordon
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I did some different photography for me today. A test shoot at an indoor dog agility training session. There was limited light and my D300 was set to IS3200, F2.8 and 1/250sec (no flash). I shot about 200 pictures but got an unexpected variation in white balance and was wondering what caused it and if it can be avoided.

These two images are typical, I'm sure it can be corrected in PP, but it is annoying. The white balance differences are in the RAW file, so it has nothing to do with white balance controls in the camera as far as I know. Maybe it's the fluorescent lighting?

Picture 1

Picture 2

Any advice welcome.
 
You might be right about the fluorescent lighting Gordon, I wonder if there was different phases on different circuits:thinking:

They are great images though, you must be chuffed nonetheless ?
 
Hi Ian


yep ... all lights cycle ... in the UK it is 50 cycles a second ... so if you shoot faster than 1/50 sec., you run the risk of a WB that won't be quite what you expected. It's more pronounced in florescent, sodium vapor and mercury vapor lights. In many cases, even a custom WB won't help for all your images.

If you shoot RAW, it can simplify the process by selecting all the images of a similar color, correct the first, then sync the WB settings to the rest.

HTH


Ian
 
yip, and even at shutters <60 you can get variations, if you don't have enough cycles/parts of cycles to make a good average. Where I shoot they have big sodium (I think? Start orange then white(ish) when warmed up) lights, and lots and lots of them, and it's not too pronounced there. You can see it if you look for it though.
 
alpina said:
You might be right about the fluorescent lighting Gordon, I wonder if there was different phases on different circuits:thinking:

They are great images though, you must be chuffed nonetheless ?
Click to expand...

It's a pain... I was impressed with the ISO3200 performance, will have to test out some noise reduction software, but it is ISO3200 after all!

Cyclops said:
yep ... all lights cycle ... in the UK it is 50 cycles a second ... so if you shoot faster than 1/50 sec., you run the risk of a WB that won't be quite what you expected. It's more pronounced in florescent, sodium vapor and mercury vapor lights. In many cases, even a custom WB won't help for all your images.

If you shoot RAW, it can simplify the process by selecting all the images of a similar color, correct the first, then sync the WB settings to the rest.
Click to expand...

What a pain... but thanks for confirming.
 
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