Taking pics in a school gym....?

[thesixofus]

any advice? I'm on the yearbook committee for our elementary school - and I take pictures. But I find that any pics I take in the gym turn out yellowish.. and just not nice... blah :sad:

Any advice? I have a Canon Rebel xsi and just the basic lens.. (one day I'll have many :smile: ).

Christmas concerts are coming up - and I would like to get some good pics.

Lighting is basic overhead gym lights...

[SMP_Homer]

what you're looking for it called White Balance
Mostly, your camera will mostly attempt to guess what it should be set at, but you can manually set that on your camera before shooting. There's probably a WB button on top or back of the camera. You might want to experiment with a shot at each setting to see which looks best.
If you shoot in RAW, you can easily adjust it in PP. A lot harder to correct if you only shoot jpg

[Joe300]

+1 for what SMP_Homer said and try to bring up your ISO and open the F# wide open. do a search for a custom white balance using a white card.here or google...not sure if your camera can do a custom white setting in the menu..
Joe

[themadman]

If you take photos in RAW (which I strongly recommend), you can mess with white balance. I know my T1i came with Canon Photo Profession which lets you adjust white balance. (maybe your XSi came with it too?)

[Heap64]

All good advice here.. Custom white balance up front can save you a lot of PP time afterwords. And shooting in RAW can help save you when things don't work quite as planned. I finally started shooting in RAW almost always. I can always delete the larger files once I decide I don't need them anymore.

[MT Stringer]

I use a white card and hold it in front of the camera so the gym lights will hit the card. Then I take a shot of the card that is out of focus. Actually, you may want to take several and pick from the best. Set it as the custom white balance (read up in your manual on how to set a custom white balance).

That should help, and shooting in RAW will allow you to tweak the white balance when your are doing the post processing.
Good luck.
Mike

[redrocket]

Tracy... I was in your situation not too long ago... all of these experienced photogs, all of this advice.. they are precicely right with their advice... but RAW, WHITE CARD,PP,F#,WB, etc... for me was intimidating... i did not know what they meant
here is what i did the first time i came across this problem

1. read the maunal on custom white balance...
2. in the gym... take a shot with something white filling the center focus ring in the view finder
3. use that image to set custom white balance(WB) according to the manual
4. if you post a picture on the forum.. you will get a TON of advice....

[thesixofus]

thanks everyone :) I don't shoot in raw - as I'm still a newbie in PP. I'll try the white card trick...

I should just break down in try raw already! :) (I'm not even sure I know how too... ) Yes, read the manual!

Thanks again!

Next week I will post a pic.. :)

[Big G]

I don't shoot in raw - as I'm still a newbie in PP.

If you use the DPP software that came with your camera, it is very simple to make any adjustments to a RAW image. All you have to do is save as a jpeg as the final part of your work flow. Take a few test shots and try it.

If I remember correctly it is "file" "Save and Convert" to create the jpeg from RAW.

[hunter440]

As others have said, raw is the way to go. Watch this and you might see why!

http://www.whibalhost.com/_Tutorials/WhiBal/01/