Correcting for sodium lights

[deztoys]

I was out playing with the 10D at the local pier (Newport Beach) and was trying to correct the color balance for the sodium lights (I think they are soium, bright yellow/brown). Bot none of the presets seemed to make a difference. Has anyone solved this challenge? Does one of the presets normally sove this or do I need to use the manual temp setting to make a difference.

Thanks.

[Tom W]

According to one internet source, sodium lighting color temperature is around 2100 degrees. That's most likely a temperature you'll have to dial in manually.

[TeraGram93013]

According to this PG&E pdf document (http://www.pge.com/003_save_energy/003c_edu_train/pec/info_resource/pdf/High_Pressure_Sodium_Lamps.pdf) High Pressure Sodium Lamps run from 1900 - 2800 K.

[robertwgross]

Just do a custom white balance and be done with it.

---Bob Gross---

[EXA1a]

I was out playing with the 10D at the local pier (Newport Beach) and was trying to correct the color balance for the sodium lights (I think they are soium, bright yellow/brown). Bot none of the presets seemed to make a difference. Has anyone solved this challenge? Does one of the presets normally sove this or do I need to use the manual temp setting to make a difference.

Thanks.
Sodium light is monochromic yellow light (wavelength = 589nm). As such, there is no "color balance" possible. The only thing you could do is to shift the visible yellow to white. Theoretically you would then get a B&W picture, without any colors visible. Objects which absorb yellow light appear dark, and objects reflecting yellow light appear light. Don't expect any blue, green or red color. In the case of a pure sodium lamp you could easier convert to B&W without losing any color information.
In real life, you don't find exclusive sodium light. It's normally mixed with some tungston and/or mercury light. If you now adjust sodium yellow to white, these other light sources will appear extremely blueish.
I'd recommend to shoot RAW and play with color until it looks good. As I said, there is no true compensation possible. That's a matter of physics and it's not camera-dependent!

--Jens--

[Phil Hall]

A lot of arenas have sodiom lights. On the ID you can set to sodium, otherwise set the temperature to around 2000 degrees. It makes a lot of difference to the picture.

[Tom W]

Here's a link at photo.net that gives some interesting information on different types of sodium lighting.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000jfn

There are apparently a couple of different types of sodium lighting, one of which is very monochromatic (as Jens mentions) and the other which has at least some spectrum to it.

Give the discussion a quick read.

[Jim_T]

I posted in one of the other threads here that I don't shoot RAW all the time... Despite that, I *do* us RAW exclusively when shooting under sodium lamps..

I use the file viewer utility and use the "pick white point" eyedropper in the white balance option. By sampling regions that should be white, you can get your images looking pretty good.. Better yet if you can get a grey card in your shot. Of course, the colors will never be 'right'.. But you can lose that sickly orange caste...