Ok, I'm trying to keep up with all the threads I've started. But here's one more:
Still playing with the new sony and ran into something that I don't understand.
I set up an alienbee and einstein to do head shots. Einstein with a large soft box and alienbee as a hair light. Shooting in a large classroom. florescent lights. The shutter was set to 1/160, so the florescent lights were not effecting the end results. (I did turn off the florescents and the photos looked the same.
I used myself as a guinea pig to figure out lighting. (I know -- first mistake. No it's not my face that broke the camera!! Well... maybe not...
Anyway, the photos of me looked fine.
The only change I made between shooting myself and my first student was that I changed from jpeg to RAW. I somehow had switched it to jpeg only accidentally.
The photos were blue.
I assume that the white balance is off. But the exposure is also low. But I kept doing the external light meter and everything was metering fine. I've never in 22 years of photography set a custom white balance, so I had no clue how to on the new camera. But I tried other preset white balances and they were even worse. I had one of the administrative assistants come in. She was wearing all gold. She was terribly blue.
I've always shot with auto white balance without difficulties. Many times things would have to be tweaked a little bit, but nothing like this.
1. Have you had this? Do you know why it's so bad?
2. Is it the Sony? Is there something I'm just missing, do I always have to set a custom white balance? That would be annoying if I couldn't trust it. (though I'll go ahead and set the white balance from now on for things like this. I just worry that I'll forget to set it back. But why was it so bad to begin with?
And why did my exposure also get so bad?
Unfortunately I don't have a RAW file of the test photos of me, so I can't see what the temperature was on photos that worked.
But seriously... you shouldn't have to change the white balance simply because of what a person is wearing -- you'd have to be adjusting it all the time. I've NEVER had it be this off. So any information would be helpful.
  (these were just testing the lights, so I didn't care about composition at this point.)
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