Lighting Issue

I shot my daughter's Taekwondo event yesterday and had major problems with the hall lighting. The hall had a very high roof with banks of 4 flourescent strip lights. I can give a more detailed description if needed.

Whenever I took a burst of shots I would get one with the correct white balance and another totally wrong, sometimes with a green tinge some blue. I tried different white balances but could never get two shots with the same colouring.
Some would show it as I had applied a gradient.

All help gratefully accepted thanks.

P.S. if it helps I was using a 1DX on 14 fps.

A couple more.

With lighting like that and your 50Hz power line frequency, you MUST use 1/100, 1/50, 1/25, etc., shutter speeds. This is the only way to expose the entire image to at least one half of the power cycle.

The fluorescent lights change brightness and color during each half-cycle of the power. Thus, you need to use ALL of the half power cycle or multiples of it to get uniform exposure and color.

In the United States and other places with 60Hz power, the choices are 1/120, 1/60, 1/30, etc.

You could also overpower the fluorescent lighting with flash and avoid the problem. This may require a flash unit that's much more powerful than the typical hotshoe flash unit (such as a Canon Speedlite). You may need a studio flash unit or several of them.

SkipD wrote in post #18190755
With lighting like that and your 50Hz power line frequency, you MUST use 1/100, 1/50, 1/25, etc., shutter speeds. This is the only way to expose the entire image to at least one half of the power cycle.

The fluorescent lights change brightness and color during each half-cycle of the power. Thus, you need to use ALL of the half power cycle or multiples of it to get uniform exposure and color.

In the United States and other places with 60Hz power, the choices are 1/120, 1/60, 1/30, etc.

You could also overpower the fluorescent lighting with flash and avoid the problem. This may require a flash unit that's much more powerful than the typical hotshoe flash unit (such as a Canon Speedlite). You may need a studio flash unit or several of them.

WOW brilliant thanks, so basically I'm on to a loser! To freeze the action I needed to shoot at 1/800 min. I've got a speedlite but wasn't keen on using it, I don't like using flash at sports events. Having said that i've never shot an indoor sports event before, I normally do ball sports outside.

Really appreciate your answer thanks.

I thought that the 1Dx had the anti-flicker system that Canon have now started including, that allows the camera to time the shot so that even for high shutter speeds it exposes around the peak of a half cycle, eliminating this issue. The only thing being that it will reduce the burst rate a bit, since it may have to wait a for the next peak to fire the shutter, but at least there are either 100 or 120 of them every second to pick from.

Alan

Pretty sure that is only available on: 7D2, 1DX2, 80D(?).

Yep pretty sure Tom's right. The original 1Dx doesn't have anti flicker.

You can salvage these shots in post processing. Fortunately you shot at 1/800 second so you don't have banding in each individual image, just color change between them. If you shot raw you have full control over color balance, but even if you shot jpg you can adjust (it as I did).

Here are my quick edits of your first two shots - I just adjusted the brightness and contrast, then used the eyedropper in my photo editing program to set white point for what looked to me like decent skin tone. In the first I clicked the eyedropper on the shoulder of the boy seated behind her, in the second I clicked on her right cuff (assumed the uniforms were white).

What PP software do you have? If you have PSCC there are some good tutorials for removing color cast. I've been watching quite a few from Aaron Nace, the founder of PHLEARN. Here's one that he done for Removing Color Cast. Here's another tutorial by Glyn Dewis, How to Remove Color Cast Fast

I use Lightroom and Photoshop. I have got rid of some of the casts and made them useable but the problem ones are ones like this one where it is more of a gradient. Thanks, I'll check out the links. I like both those chaps especially Glyn.

number six wrote in post #18192850
You can salvage these shots in post processing. Fortunately you shot at 1/800 second so you don't have banding in each individual image, just color change between them. If you shot raw you have full control over color balance, but even if you shot jpg you can adjust (it as I did).

Here are my quick edits of your first two shots - I just adjusted the brightness and contrast, then used the eyedropper in my photo editing program to set white point for what looked to me like decent skin tone. In the first I clicked the eyedropper on the shoulder of the boy seated behind her, in the second I clicked on her right cuff (assumed the uniforms were white).

Hosted photo: posted by number six in
./showthread.php?p=181​92850&i=i203602142
forum: General Photography Talk

Hosted photo: posted by number six in
./showthread.php?p=181​92850&i=i91720388
forum: General Photography Talk

Somehow the carpet miraculously changed from blue to green. Shrug. That's fluorescent lighting for you. Don't know what to suggest to make her left foot look more natural in the second shot.

There are many folks on this forum who are far better at I at post processing - you might ask for expert guidance.

-js

Thanks for trying. It is a nightmare, lesson learned hopefully. Some shots have the cast through the middle and they are just not usable.

Dj Silver wrote in post #18193601
Thanks for trying. It is a nightmare, lesson learned hopefully. Some shots have the cast through the middle and they are just not usable.

Try black and white. If they are genuinely unusable due to colour cast, you may be able to salvage some decent B&Ws.

dodgyexposure wrote in post #18193854
Try black and white. If they are genuinely unusable due to colour cast, you may be able to salvage some decent B&Ws.

Thanks, I have made a few black and white, can't beat good old Nik Collection!