Reception Photos have pea soup background - argh!

[stock_dude_99]

Hi All,
I attended my niece's wedding and most of the photos at the reception have an awful pea soup color to the background. What did I do wrong? Was it the high ISO, or should I have increased my flash exposure compensation?

I used a 30D, 430ex flash, 17-55 f2.8 lens.

Please help so I can learn from this....


The reception hall had a white drop down ceiling, and a greenish tile floor.

Pic 1: wedding party, shows that the hall is indeed white.
Pic 2: shows the bad background color

Pic 2 Exif Data:

File size: 3,610KB
Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Shutter speed: 1/160 sec
Aperture: 3.2
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: On
ISO: 1250
Focal length: 31mm
Image size: 3504 x 2336
Rotation: none
Color space: sRGB

[gateruner]

Ill bet your white balance is set wrong. Set it up for Florescent lighting and see if it helps. My understanding is florescent light is green so changing your white balance may help. Looking at shot # 1 the stage is dark and you lit it with flash but the 2nd is under the florescent light and is causing your issues. Thats my best SWAG

[sblais]

You used flash as fill in the second. The color of your flash and that of fluorescent is quite different. Look into getting rosco gels to match the color of the flash to that of fluorescents.

Also, have a look at Curtis' Flash 101 (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=171657)

[jjmucker]

this is why i always shoot in RAW. this could possibly be fixed by shooting in RAW by adjusting white balance during PP

[sblais]

I don't think RAW is much better when you have two light sources of different colors in one image. Adjust for one and the other one will be off. At this point, it's a matter of taking care of this when taking the shot. For now, you can always make a mask and adjust your subject and your background separately. A lot more time consuming than putting a simple gel on your flash! Another thing you can do to avoid this is to use your flash as the main source of light. But then, you lose the ambiance.

[gheesom]

ok I've got to agree this looks like your WB is out,
I've used 2 filters in PS both cooling filters to counteract the greeny yellowy colour
if you've got Photoshop Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter
First I used Cooling Filter (80) then Cooling Filter (LBB)
Hope that helps

[stock_dude_99]

Great, thanks to everyone for your responses. :)
I will try the photoshop idea on the others and see how they come out...

[italianfemmy]

Decent edit gheesom, sort of saved the image :-) Way to go!

[Toogy]

Black and White for the win!

I love black and white reception shots! Sorry I know it doesn't really answer your question on how to shoot it better.

http://www.digitaliso.ca/bad-background-1.jpg

[gheesom]

Decent edit gheesom, sort of saved the image :-) Way to go!

Thank you very much.
I think it may work really well with sepiatone on it.

[italianfemmy]

Your welcome. I kind of like the black and white also, would be nice to mix a few of them in. There truly are some helpful people on this forum stock_dude. I would definitely use some of these suggestions as they surely save the images from the trash bin. :-)

[beech1]

I would reccomend a custom WB shot done with a wallce disk or a gray card. Just remember if you go to different lighting change the WB.

Don

[stock_dude_99]

Your welcome. I kind of like the black and white also, would be nice to mix a few of them in. There truly are some helpful people on this forum stock_dude. I would definitely use some of these suggestions as they surely save the images from the trash bin. :-)

Yes, I greatly appreciate the help and ideas. Thanks to all who took the time to help.

[BJ Pulsipher]

I did that once with film. Florescent light and flash fall off. The bridesmaids looked like they were coming down a sci-fi green shiney tunnel. The above listed advice is good. Custom white balance.

[jj1987]

You've got to gel the flash during the reception, no other way.

[Curtis N]

You've got to gel the flash during the reception, no other way.Yep. Match the flash color temp with the ambient (in this case, ugly green fluorescent). Then adjust white balance accordingly.

More info here (http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-using-gels-to-correct.html), from Strobist.

[lippy113]

alter the colour temp and blur the background gives it more impact
179882

[tdodd]

A quick edit in Lightroom from the original post....

[JWright]

This was always one of my biggest complaints when I was shooting weddings regularly. The people who design and manage wedding halls have no concept of what makes a venue suitable for photography. How about venues that have mirrors on the walls? Arrrghhh!!! Brides should consult with the photographer before booking a venue, but unfortunately, the photographer is usually the last thing the couple takes care of.

[litwinphotography]

A simple solution would be to open the JPEGS in Adobe lightroom. You can change the white balance there very easily and it doens everything to a JPEG that adobe RAW can do to a RAW file and more! You cant go back and reshoot obviously, so all the custom WB advise is something to keep in mind for next time. In the meantime, lightroom will work fine!

[Tragerman]

What's curious to me, is the white balance was on auto. If the flash is on, does the white balance default to flash white balance? Otherwise, it would have corrected the room light, more or less. Then, the flash WB would have been off.... Another way is to use strobes to light the room and overpower the hideous ambient light... I'd rather have incandescent light as the ambient. Much better to work with. Of course, our environmental friends believe that being 'green' is all that. Maybe they hadn't considered photography....
Cheers,
Mickey

[TheSteveMadden]

Hi All,
I attended my niece's wedding and most of the photos at the reception have an awful pea soup color to the background. What did I do wrong? Was it the high ISO, or should I have increased my flash exposure compensation?

I used a 30D, 430ex flash, 17-55 f2.8 lens.

Please help so I can learn from this....


The reception hall had a white drop down ceiling, and a greenish tile floor.

Pic 1: wedding party, shows that the hall is indeed white.
Pic 2: shows the bad background color

Pic 2 Exif Data:

File size: 3,610KB
Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Shutter speed: 1/160 sec
Aperture: 3.2
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: On
ISO: 1250
Focal length: 31mm
Image size: 3504 x 2336
Rotation: none
Color space: sRGB

The first thing you'll want to do under flourescent is to set your shutter to 1/125, 1/60 or 1/30. Flourescent bulbs change color as they go through the 60 hz a/c sine wave, resulting in different colors for different frames if shooting at a speed higher than 1/125s. The values above will give you a complete color cycle on the bulb, resulting in a more consistent color.

If I'm shooting under flourescent's, I'll either shoot ambient light at 1/125s with my 85mm or 1/60s on my 50mm or overpower the lighting with my flash by dropping the ISO and using and an omni-bounce. Florescent lights are usually accompanied by a relatively low white drop ceiling which helps in bouncing the flash.

A side advantage of using overpowering the lights is the flash falloff can help mask a less than beautiful venue.

Note: These shutter speeds may be multiples of 1/50 across the pond..

[souporman]

The first thing you'll want to do under flourescent is to set your shutter to 1/125, 1/60 or 1/30. Flourescent bulbs change color as they go through the 60 hz a/c sine wave, resulting in different colors for different frames if shooting at a speed higher than 1/125s. The values above will give you a complete color cycle on the bulb, resulting in a more consistent color.

If I'm shooting under flourescent's, I'll either shoot ambient light at 1/125s with my 85mm or 1/60s on my 50mm or overpower the lighting with my flash by dropping the ISO and using and an omni-bounce. Florescent lights are usually accompanied by a relatively low white drop ceiling which helps in bouncing the flash.

A side advantage of using overpowering the lights is the flash falloff can help mask a less than beautiful venue.

Note: These shutter speeds may be multiples of 1/50 across the pond..

Just wanted to second this as a possible cause of your problems. I had the same issues (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=330090) with flourescent lighting recently (shooting fencing, not weddings) and was given this link that talks about the problem:

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=20873

Fortunately, you don't need to worry about really high shutter speeds so I suspect that following TheSteveMaddens' advice (along with the suggestions of everyone else) will get you headed in the right direction.

[JimAskew]

Try this...it works great with 17-55MM EF-S IS and 30D combo and my 580EX:

(M)anual mode
1/200th
f/5.6
ISO 400
AWB
Bounce flash off the ceiling

This will work well if the ceiling is normal height and you are not trying to light up the entire room.

[Attic]

Here you are using the LBB filter a blur layer and a crop and tweak hope you like :-) There is a beautiful picture trying to get out of every shot taken.

[black_z]

That's REALLY nice! :)