Colour cast help required

[Mad Dave]

Hi guys,

Im attending a charity event on Friday and have been asked to take some photographs. Now, the event is a ballroom at a London hotel and im really quite worried about getting a yellow colour cast on my shots - what type of lighting causes this? A colleague tells me that if I use flash, which of course I will have to, I won't get any colour casts - is this correct, or is it not quite as easy as that? I'm loathe to use a blue filter as the lighting may be pretty poor as it is, without further reducing the amount of light getting to the lens! If i buy some indoor balanced film, will I get a dodgy blue colour cast if I use it with flash?

Thoughts?

Dave

[simpo two]

Mad Dave said:

Now, the event is a ballroom at a London hotel and im really quite worried about getting a yellow colour cast on my shots - what type of lighting causes this? A colleague tells me that if I use flash, which of course I will have to, I won't get any colour casts - is this correct, or is it not quite as easy as that? I'm loathe to use a blue filter as the lighting may be pretty poor as it is, without further reducing the amount of light getting to the lens! If i buy some indoor balanced film, will I get a dodgy blue colour cast if I use it with flash? Thoughts? Dave

Most film is balanced for daylight, which is relatively blue, and therefore is OK with flash as that is also 'blue'. You can get tungsten film, balanced for the redness of tungsten (ie normal) lamps, but then if you use flash you'll get a blue cast in the flash zone. If you're unlucky the venue might use mercury or fluorescent lights... the latter can give a hideous magenta cast.
So if you're using flash, I'd stick with normal daylight film.

Now of course if you had that D70 all your problems would be solved... Ctrl/Shift/L

Irony: you've got the gig, I've go the kit!

[Mad Dave]

Cheers Simpo

I actually work for the charity and its a big Ball in London - should be a few celebs etc there so ive been asked to take some pics. Not being paid for it, so not really a 'gig' but I do get your point - was tempted to go and buy a D70 on my credit card, but thought better of it

Edit to add: How powerful is the popup flash on the F70? It should be reasonably well lit (can find a light area of the hotel), but it wont exactly be daylight!

>> Edited by Mad Dave on Wednesday 13th October 19:34

[simpo two]

Mad Dave said:

Edit to add: How powerful is the popup flash on the F70? It should be reasonably well lit (can find a light area of the hotel), but it wont exactly be daylight!

F70 is GN14 I think. Good for normal work but not adequate for what you plan to do - thinking telephoto, range, red-eye etc. Suggest you get a Speedlight, and quickly!

[luca brazzi]

Sounds like fun....I used to do that as a second income...corporate hospitality stuff and functions...

A good flash and forgiving film should see you fine. Just remember lots of spare batteries, that's the last thing you want to run out.

Go digital, you know you want to

LB

[joust]

Or, stick with film and ask a decent processor to remove it for you.

If your films are processed using a Fuji Pictrography 3500 or larger/similar, you can generally get the operator to remove the colour cast for you assuming they have hooked it up to a decent spec imaging system.

If they use a Frontier 330 or similar then it's a bit harder - chat to the operator as it depends what system they have.

Most decent photo processing places will be able to correct any colour cast on film the same way you can do it in photoshop for digital - film isn't dead yet!

Of course the alternative is just to get them scanned into a PhotoCD and then get them manipulated, then use pixaco.co.uk or similar to get them printed (they use a Fuji digital printer).

J
J

[dcw@pr]

simpo two said:

If you're unlucky the venue might use mercury or fluorescent lights... the latter can give a hideous magenta cast. So if you're using flash, I'd stick with normal daylight film.

I think that the fluorescent lighting gives a green caste, and you use a magenta filter to negate it, but I may be wrong.

Another option is to use tungsten balanced film, then have a yellow filter over the flash. The nikon SB-800 comes with one of these filters in the box - can be very useful.

[Mad Dave]

Thanks guys, ill go and get a flashgun at lunchtime (provided Jessops have one in!).

When shooting indoors in the past ive always used a blue filter, or got a yellow colour cast.

It should be a good evening - having a celebrity photocall (very Hello! magazine methinks! lol) so better get some good shots

[simpo two]

dcw@pr said:

I think that the fluorescent lighting gives a green caste, and you use a magenta filter to negate it, but I may be wrong.

Oops yes, you're right.

I think the reason you got a yellow cast, Mad Dave, was because you were *not* using flash...?

[Mad Dave]

Yup, that sounds about right mate.

Ive just gone and bought one of these babies:

www.jessops.com/search/viewproduct.cfm?PRODUCT=JES320AFNI&BRAND=JES&CONTINUE=false&FEATS=&FIRSTPRICE=0&KEYWORD=&LEVEL=&MODELNUMBER=&NEWQUERY=True&NODE=183&ORD=ASC&ORDERBY=&QUANTITY=10&RECENT=0&REFINE=&SEARCH_FOR=&SEARCHNODE=0&SEARCHURL=dointellisearch.cfm&SECONDPRICE=999999&SHOWCASEID=&STARTROW=1&SUBS=286&WORD_SEARCH=N&

Its not exactly 'flash' (fnar fnar) but itll do the job! It should be all automatic off the camera, but ive got some reading to do as there are a few settings on the back - I think theyre just for Manual mode though?!