Color Shift with material

[papathree]

Dear Friends,
I am presenting you with two pictures. The one marked color of the bridesmaids dresses is what the bridesmaids dresses looked. (please note this photo is from another wedding and is to be used solely for color)
The one of the bridesmaids standing in the stair weld is how they turned out. I used Portra NC film both 35mm and 220 400 speed. I used my mamiya 645AFD with the T4D and I used my Monolta Maxxium 7 with the 5400 Flash. No matter where I shot this in the dressing room, church, reception hall, the dresses looked like this in all the photo's. Also, all the other clothing in the entire wedding shoot I shot turned out good. What happened? Was it the kind of material they were made out of? To look at the dresses as I did before the wedding you would never think they would do this. Your input would be appreciated.
Thanks
Ron Leininger

[dsc_1972]

Looks to me like a symptom of different surfaces reflecting light in different ways.
In this case hard light (from an on-camera flash?) hitting a subject which really needed a large (soft) light source and the light striking it from within what's known as the 'family of angles'.
The light needs to fall on this subject from the right angle in order for it to reflect the way you want it - ie see the colour. And it needs to be soft - i.e. from a big source like a softbox) to give you the result you want.
I would recommend you read this book (http://www.amazon.com/Light-Science-Introduction-Photographic-Lighting/dp/0240802756).
It really made me appreciate the different qualities of light and how it is affected by different materials and surfaces it strikes.

[Chandler.]

My sister had a prom dress that looked like this when we used flash. It has to be the material. I think it looks cool.

[GertS]

I had it several times with direct flash light due to the reflections of the material.
You never know ahead how it will turn out. One time some black material turned nearly transparent and the underwear got visible. :o Had to delete the image.

Indirect and available light is better. ;)

[BaliHai]

Fabrics and the dyes in them absorb light in different ways causing color shifts with some films. In my days working with catalogs we experienced it many times using ecktachome these color shifts were annoying because for printing purposes they all had to be color corrected. The shifts were especially bad with khakis and olives though sometimes blues would appear off as well.

[MartinN]

Looks to me like the dresses are a silk material which when flash is used it acts as a reflector due to being a shiny material! It also looks like you used direct flash???, bouncing the flash may have helped prevent some of this.

[papathree]

This is the first time I experienced this. High ceilings could not permit bouncing and being is such a hurry with time restraints keep me from using large umbrellas.