Once again I was at the gym taking photos at basketball practice.
Tonight I decided to take the camera off of auto white balance to see what a differance it would make.
I was amazed at how different the photos looked.
The first one is with the camera on auto balance and the second one with the white balance set to tungsten.
Now I have no idea for sure just what kind of lights are in a gym.
Could someone tell me if they are tungsten?
Guess I should have taken a photo of the lights too, lol..
These are right from the camera and I only resized them.
With the camera set to tungsten I think the whites looks much whiter and the blue so blue.
I also now see that I got a fast shutter speed in AV mode with the camera set to tungsten.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the white balance of these two photos and any tips you could give me.
I was playing around with the Aperture setting too and though the lens is a f/1.4 it seems I would get the best focus for a group of players using 2.8 or anything above 2.0
The ones on the walking track above and the lights above the door way area I think are fluorescent. You can see on in the photo. The ones up really high are really bright and reflect off the wooden gym floor and are different then fluorescent lights.
You are going to always have mixed lighting in a gym. I usually shoot with a WB setting of tungsten, tweaked to -1. I find that gives a slightly warmer tone. Here are some examples
Gyms and other sporting venues often have positively the *worst* lighting situation you are ever likely to encounter. It does look like your venue was lit with tungsten or something that was at least close to tungsten for WB purposes. That's relatively unusual these days.
Often, gyms are lit with arc lamps, which can have a range of colors depending which gasses are used in the lamps. Even worse, they often mix sodium lamps (orange) with other types to get a more natural looking lighting. This lighting mix plays havoc with WB, since the WB changes from place to place on the gym floor. You can tell if they did this by looking at the lights. If they have different color casts from lamp to lamp, you're in trouble.
Not sure about the Pentax, but the Fuji that I use has a couple of custom white balance settings which make it easy unless the light is different from one part of the floor to the other, like day light coming thru the window in one area for instance.
To do a custom WB with the Fuji, all that's necessary is a white or grey card, and one exposure in the anticipated light. This is handy for wedding photos with ambient light if you can get the setting before the party starts, then switch to it when the flash is turned off.
Not sure about the Pentax, but the Fuji that I use has a couple of custom white balance settings which make it easy unless the light is different from one part of the floor to the other, like day light coming thru the window in one area for instance.
To do a custom WB with the Fuji, all that's necessary is a white or grey card, and one exposure in the anticipated light. This is handy for wedding photos with ambient light if you can get the setting before the party starts, then switch to it when the flash is turned off.
Sounds like the Manual WB I have on the pentax.
Put the WB in manual and point it at a white card. Snap the shutter and view the preview to see if it looks white. If so press OK to set the Manual white balance.
Seems like I saw a thread just like this yesterday, but can't find it now.
In a pinch, any paper that you know is white in daylight will work for the WB setting, even a grocery reciept. It dont' have to be in focus if you go to manual focus you can put it right near the lens to set the WB, then back to auto if you want to shoot with auto.
Seems like I saw a thread just like this yesterday, but can't find it now.
In a pinch, any paper that you know is white in daylight will work for the WB setting, even a grocery reciept. It dont' have to be in focus if you go to manual focus you can put it right near the lens to set the WB, then back to auto if you want to shoot with auto.
Most of these gyms (the ones i shoot in regularly) are lit with mercury vapor lamps. The color casting problems are more from the flooring than from the light sources.
You are going to always have mixed lighting in a gym. I usually shoot with a WB setting of tungsten, tweaked to -1. I find that gives a slightly warmer tone. Here are some examples
Gym lighting is terrible. Sometimes the lights are mixed--you may see cool white fluorescents mixed with warm white because the school uses whatever cheapest. And some older fluorescents are on 60 cycle (or 50, depending on your mains power) and you'll see a color change if you shoot faster than 1/60 (newer fluorescents have a high frequency ballast and don't show this affect) But sodium or mercury are the worst. They don't have enough of some parts of the color spectrum and change color at 60 cycles. And some lights may be on three phase, leading to this kind of situation:
I've found the best thing to do is a custom WB. Use the coffee filter trick (ie put a white coffee filter, napkin or similar over the lens and take a picture and set WB from that). Or if you want to spend money, buy an expodisk.
Also, take a few pictures of the lights after you WB, and use something faster than 1/60 (go as fast as you can). This will tell you if you have 60 cycle issues (ie color cycling with the AC power cycle). If this happens, about the best you can do is convert to B&W :-)
One more thing about this.. Don't forget to take the camera off custom WB at the end of the event. I have a couple of lenses which have a bit of a strange effect on auto WB. One is a Sigma 400/5.6 which adds a bit of a cooler hue. I set a custom WB with the lens on when using it for nature photos, which works well unless the ambient light quality changes.
So many buttons, so few brains.
