Blue Light Special?

[David Saunders II]

This is my first attempt at "studio style" lighting and photos with my girlfriend as the model. The setup is as follows: one dual-head incandescent lamp at about 6" above her head and one weak (about 60w) lamp in front and to her left. One of the dual-heads was pointed at the wall and the other was half at the wall and half at her. Above were two florescent room lights. No flash.

My question is, where is the blue tint coming from? Am I correct in assuming it's the florescent lights? If so, how do I adjust white balance for two different types of light?

Also, her body looks too dark, may I ask for suggestions on lighting her directly? No PP at all except for resizing.

Thanks



http://www.dsaunders.org/blog/Lists/Photos/Blog%20Pics/IMG_8048-1024.jpg

[Curtis N]

What was your white balance set to?

[David Saunders II]

WB was set to Auto

[Curtis N]

Ok this is a total guess.
If the fluorescent lights were "daylight balanced", then possibly they would create a blue cast if your camera's AWB tried to adjust for the tungsten. Usually Fluorescents make things an ugly green but there's a lot of different bulbs out there.

Bottom line is, mixing light sources creates problems that are difficult to overcome. Light your subject with all tungsten or all flash and you'll be in better shape. Also if you're using tungsten I would suggest tungsten WB setting (better than AWB), or a custom white balance (better yet), or shoot RAW and adjust the white balance in post (my favorite).

[David Saunders II]

Great - thanks for the insight. This was shot at night so I'm not sure if AWB chose "daylight".

How about lighting her front? Use a flash or some kind of other direct lighting? I'm thinking bounced flash from a (yet to be purchased) speedlight... am I on the right track?

[Curtis N]

The studio lighting videos and links up in the stickies provide a lot of basics on light placement. The same guidelines apply to continuous light as they do to strobes.

[PacAce]

Since most of the wall is white my guess is that you're getting too much light on the wall and not enough on the subject. Try getting some of that light going to the wall pointed more at the subject. BTW, why did you have most of the light pointed at the wall? Were you going for a silhouette effect or did you just want the wall to be pure white in the picture?

[Titus213]

A quick run thru CS3 ACR required warming the photo up - lots - or boosting the exposure and the temp a bit. I believe your issues are too cool WB, underexposed image, multiple light types.

[Benji]

Great - thanks for the insight. This was shot at night so I'm not sure if AWB chose "daylight".

"Daylight": is a preset color temperature in your camera, not a time of day.

Ben

[David Saunders II]

Since most of the wall is white my guess is that you're getting too much light on the wall and not enough on the subject. Try getting some of that light going to the wall pointed more at the subject. BTW, why did you have most of the light pointed at the wall? Were you going for a silhouette effect or did you just want the wall to be pure white in the picture?

I was going for a blown-out wall. I thought I wasn't getting enough light on the subject but honestly I ran out of lights :-) Time to get out the plastic.

"Daylight": is a preset color temperature in your camera, not a time of day.

Ben

Yes, that's quite obvious. My point was that AWB chooses a color temp based on what kind of light it thinks it sees. I was saying that there's no way it was "seeing" daylight and changing the WB to that because it was at night under indoor lighting.

Thanks all for the feedback :-)

[Blackey Cole]

cheap solution if you are wanting hot light( lights that are on constantly) is to go to Home Depot or similar store andget some work lights and then white balance for them. I picked up two sets from Sears several years ago during this time of year when they were havin gWeekend special on top of sale prices on top of Craftsman discounts and they ren me about $1kw or $40 for both sets and I hade four powers setting per pair of light ranging for 0 to !kw in 500w increments so you can do light ratios without haveing to move the lights. These lights shoudl overcome and ambiant light for most indoor situations.

[David Saunders II]

cheap solution if you are wanting hot light( lights that are on constantly) is to go to Home Depot or similar store andget some work lights and then white balance for them. I picked up two sets from Sears several years ago during this time of year when they were havin gWeekend special on top of sale prices on top of Craftsman discounts and they ren me about $1kw or $40 for both sets and I hade four powers setting per pair of light ranging for 0 to !kw in 500w increments so you can do light ratios without haveing to move the lights. These lights shoudl overcome and ambiant light for most indoor situations.

That's a cool idea - just curious though as a complete newbie, don't the lights come in terms of Watts? For example, 1kw would mean a 1000 Watt light? When I go to Sears/etc. I should look for a 1000 Watt light with 4 settings?

And, how do you set the white balance for a particular light? My 400D has "daylight, cloudy, tungsten, etc." What would I choose for those Sears types of lights?

[Curtis N]

A thousand watts is one kilowatt. Do not compare or confuse the wattage of a continuous light with the wattsecond rating of a strobe.how do you set the white balance for a particular light?Lookup "custom white balance" in your camera instruction manual.

[David Saunders II]

Excellent. A new light is on the way today, I'll try out your suggestions. Thanks everyone.

[4x4rock]

One word of caution though, if your subject is too close to those 4 lights at full power, you may turn them into BBQ. :D

Those will be HOT and if you're running them for long, your electric bill will not be very happy.

[Benji]

One word of caution though, if your subject is too close to those 4 lights at full power, you may turn them into BBQ. :D

Those will be HOT and if you're running them for long, your electric bill will not be very happy.

Not only are they extremely hot but they will ignite just about anything that is reasonably close to them (like diffusion material you will want to hang in front of them to soften them down.)

I would NOT use them. Most of them are even labeled "For Outdoor Use Only" and if you use them indoors and someone gets burned I hope you have lots of money to pay your attorney.

Benji

[David Saunders II]

Thanks for the note of caution but I'm using CFL lights - instead of 97% energy loss as heat like incandescents, they're much more efficient, have much less heat and provide the white light I'm looking for. I'm having an issue now with aiming and quantity of lights but I'm sure that will improve with practice and lots and lots of POTN reading :)