How to deal with new LED church lighting

I noticed that our Parish has gone to LED. Our altar is surrounded by 4 pillars, each with 6 or so spot lights on a track. Here's one of the pillars with regular light to give you an example (please excuse the poor photo).

I always shoot my Parish photography in RAW........ Can I adjust white balance to maintain the warm color we used to enjoy? Other tricks?

Thanks!

No problems here, just WB, a trivial technical exercise. What's your question?

Some styles of LED flicker with AC.
Like with fluorescent, you have to be mindful of shutter speed to make sure you capture at least one cycle.
Unlike fluorescent, you don't seem to get weird color shifts.

I don't know if the LED replacements for incandescents are subject to this same flicker. I used LED string lights in a stage prop, shot the performance at 1/125 to 1/200, and in half my shots the LEDs appear to be completely off.

tim wrote in post #16566093
No problems here, just WB, a trivial technical exercise. What's your question?

First I thought your response was a bit snippy, but then I re-read my post and realized I was being a bit cryptic. So fair enough.

The tracklights on all 4 columns are all LED now. The remainder of the hanging lights are fluorescent, but appear warm because of the fixtures they are in. I simply asked if this change could be easily addressed with adjusting white balance

As to the next comment regarding cycle times of LEDs......
Never occurred to me to check out cycle times for these; that would make this not necessarily a trivial technical exercise......

Thanks for the input

Thx

In a church I just adjust the white balance with the dropper based on the grooms shirt or something. I don't worry about it too much, I'm a photographer not a magician. Photo you posted looks fine, just needs WB changed to cool it down.

tim wrote in post #16568304
In a church I just adjust the white balance with the dropper based on the grooms shirt or something. I don't worry about it too much, I'm a photographer not a magician. Photo you posted looks fine, just needs WB changed to cool it down.

Agreed. OP you are over thinking things way too much here.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #16568717
Agreed. OP you are over thinking things way too much here.

^^^^ this x3 ^^^^^^^^^

mpstan wrote in post #16568148
As to the next comment regarding cycle times of LEDs......
Never occurred to me to check out cycle times for these; that would make this not necessarily a trivial technical exercise

Are you there to photograph the people or to photograph the spotlights?

Photographing people, definitely not the lights. Definitely I overthink lighting.

Just so we are all clear, the photo I posted does NOT have the LED lights that are now installed, and the area where I shoot kids taking first communion, or during Confirmation services, is bathed in mixed flourescent and LED light now. It looks more night-clubby. I simply wanted to know if anyone else has encountered this and what adjustments they needed to make. Maybe it's just a white balance adjustment.... great. My question was probably too trivial for this group. I'm an amateur photographer, but a very good amateur, and I've read that mixed lights can be very challenging.... hence my question.

Thank you for the comments about me overthinking this. I'll work with it.

If you can't overpower the lights with your own then you just work with what you get... which is the case in most churches as they don't allow flash. In which case you simply adjust the WB so the whites and skin-tones of the main subjects are correct. That is about all you can do and more importantly all that is really worth doing.

If the look of the Church is more "nightclub" then the pictures will reflect that accurately. If people don't want a "nightclub" feel in a Church they really shouldn't choose a Church lit that way... Imagine a couple getting married outside at sunset and then complaining that there was a sunset in the images, it is no different.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #16569927
If people don't want a "nightclub" feel in a Church they really shouldn't choose a Church lit that way.

In the U.S., by law, incandescent bulbs are being phased out. Expect more mixed lighting in the near future, as well as the need to cope with its effect on images.

OhLook wrote in post #16570283
In the U.S., by law, incandescent bulbs are being phased out. Expect more mixed lighting in the near future, as well as the need to cope with its effect on images.

If you're not allowed to use flash then all you can do is shoot in the environment you are presented with. There is no need to cope as such... there are simply the images that are produced. Adjusting your WB for the main subjects isn't coping, it is just part of working in any environment no matter how it is lit.

If you want to take the time to investigate things a bit before you shoot an event here's what I would do.

Take a piece of white paper and put it up where the people you will be shooting will stand. Take a 1 second burst of photos at the proper exposure and see if they all look the same. If they do you can use one of those images to set a custom white balance for that setting.

If they show different colors there is really nothing to do but adjust the white balance of each photo as you process them.

I shoot a lot of sports and find that you can't tell what you will get without shooting some photos. I shoot on fields that have three or so different color temperatures and others, including gyms that use fluorescent fixtures, that have just one.

My preference is to use custom white balance in camera when you can to get it right without needing to adjust in post.

Good insights. Thank you all for your time.

I would suggest shooting in RAW and adjusting wb in post. See if you can take a few shots sometime (outside of Mass or other events, if your priest will allow it) and have a few models stand in for you. Hopefully, you will start to see a pattern develop as far as color temp is concerned.