Help with tough indoor shooting
- This topic has 9 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated Mar 21, 2008 at 4:08 am by
.
-
Posts
-
Tonight I took my 5 year old daughter to a rock gym and drug along the DSLR. Needless to say…like most of my other photography outings it didnt go so well. She did GREAT! I did not.
The lighting in this place was far from ideal. Lots of flouresence and goofy shadows and funky colors etc etc. I wanted to get away with as little flash as possible. So most of the time I opened it up as much as possible. I then tried faster shutter speeds but that required flash which as you will see really changed the outcome of the picture.
Here are two examples of the extremes I was getting. The first one is closer to what things actually looked like. Problem is the slower shutter speed had 2/3 of my shots out of focus. The second one has lots of stuff washed out and just looking pretty bad.
After getting home I actually did some thinking (arent you supposed to do that in the field) and I was wondering how much difference it would have made if I had adjusted the White Balance off of Auto and put it on Tungsten or indoor flourescent. How much of a difference would that have made?
At the end of the day I know I need a faster lens but I also know I can get more out of the lens I have.
Any thoughts would be great.
tim,
First thing I would do is bump up the ISO to get the shutter speed up to reduce motion blur. You’re not going to be able to get rid of the funky color cast without overpowering the lights with strobes. The lights appear to be the same that you find in gymnasiums. They change between a greenish hue to a orange/magenta hue. All the lamps aren’t on the same cycle so you get a mixture of color from the different lights.http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramSome good advice above – white balance will likely need to be adjusted, but you’ll also want to think about gelling that flash.
Tim Im going echo what Chad said.
Bump your ISO, if you have to max it out. Some noise is better than motion blur. I also concur with him with regards to the lighting availabe in most indoor gymnasiums. Bloody designers always think about the atheletes and never the photogs 🙂White Balance.
Shoot RAW and set the camera to auto WB. You can massage it in post.I shoot my daughters gymnastics events and my neices volleyball occasionally. The lighting is brutal, no flash allowed and colour cast are a chore.
But with fast glass, high ISO, and RAW I can get results that I’m happy with.
Certainly not print worthy, but proud dad, uncle worthy? you bet.1/1250th at ISO 1,000
Getting the WB even close on that was only possible by shooting in RAW. Cant recall how much I had to change it but I know the original was way off.
Open your lens as much as you can. Your only isolating your daughter and at that distance DoF shouldnt be an issue. Keep raising your ISO until you a SS that high enough. For Volley ball and Gymnastics I like 1/500th to 1/1000th. You shouldnt need anywhere near that. Maybe only as much as 1/100th to 1/250th.
And use RAW.
You can correct WB in post to deal with most of the colour cast. Hardest part is dealing with the crap light. Skin tones are a bugger but again they arent for sale so I dont care much./edit add.
Forgot to mention. At the distance your shooting chances are, your flash, even if its an off board ( as opposed to on board) the flash isn’t reaching your daughter, especially at higher ISOs. Its been a long time and flash photography isnt my thing but Id be surprsed if your flash is getting that far.Even with a Better Beamer that would be about my off baord flashes limit at high ISO. Dotn quote me though 🙂 I reserve the rght to be mistaken
You could always convert to B&W in post! ;D
Seriously though, it could save you a lot of headaches trying to balance out the color cast from the lamps.
Maybe something like this would work. It may be a bit too contrasty and dramatic for the subject, but I was trying to make her pop out from the wall a bit.
http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramShoot from a different angle. Even though you have conflicting colour casts, you are still shooting into a background that does not offer very much contrast from your subject: skin tone and clothes are effected equally to the colour casts on that wall, which seems to be in the some colour margins.. Also. always WB to your subject, unless you are going for special effects. If you move more under and to the side of your subject, you may find that the ceiling creates better contrast of your subject and/or collateral object. Off camera flash would be a huge plus too but you can still pull this shot off without it.
You could always convert to B&W in post! ;D
Seriously though, it could save you a lot of headaches trying to balance out the color cast from the lamps.
Maybe something like this would work. It may be a bit too contrasty and dramatic for the subject, but I was trying to make her pop out from the wall a bit.
Not sure if you were serious or not but that just what I did.
The reason you have shifting and multiple light colors in your photos is that the lights were probably mercury or sodium vapor which “pulse” in different kelvin temperatures to create a so called white light. You can do one of two things to lessen the effect.
1.Shoot with enough flash to drown out the available light.1. Fast Glass, nothing slower than 2.8 If you can.. if you don’t have glass that fast see #2
2. ISO, bump it.. you can clean it up later
3. Flash, unless totally prohibited, use it..
4. Shoot in RAW… you and adj the WB and tone etc in post processing… heck.. I find I use the grey card and then just process as flash (even if I don’t use it) to warm things up anyway…
5. Tripod or monopod6… Perspective… wonder if they would have hoisted you up there to take a downward shot… I’m.. thinking perhaps a little fill, perhaps not (the lights will be shining down on the subject from above)…
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.