Yellowish cast on film

I have a shoot tonight where I am shooting an art project in a gallery. I went to go take

some rough pictures of it using the existing light. I shot it with Kodak Portra 400VC

Daylight. I recieved the film back and there is a warm, yellowish cast all over except where

the spot lights are on the ceiling, which appear to show up as white light. I only have one

light to work with and my subject is 8ft. tall and 5ft wide. I am in desperate need of

guidence!<div></div>

Samantha,

 

Daylight film and tungsten lighting equals a warm yellow color cast. If you'll notice the areas outside the windows which are lit by daylight have a correct color balance while the areas in the room under the tungsten light are yellow.

 

The only reason the areas close to the tungsten spotlights are white is becaused they are overexposed.

 

Try some tungsten balanced film for better color under tungsten lights.

An 80A filter's what you need.

I would try to get those shutter speeds up as well. 1/4 of a second is not exactly hand-

holdable even with the best rangefinder. You have motion blur on the people in your

shots. If that's the look you're after, rock on!

 

I dont know what you mean by "one light" if its flash or continuos. You may even get

some yellow with a flash in a large room as well.

 

If i were you, I'd get an iso 800 or 1600 film. Even if you use a filter, that will cost you at

least 2 stops. There arent many tungsten balanced films that I know of that have high

iso's. If you push them, you may have a risk in color shift.

 

The other option is to color correct the images in photoshop. At least you wont loose

your speed. This can be a daunting task, especially if you're not familiar with the process.

 

... then there's always b&w film :D

An on or off camera flash will help overcome the tungsten light's warm effect. Put f8 on your lens(and on your flash) and bump your speed up a notch or two to 1/15 or maybe 1/30. The flash will freez the action if any and the slightly slow shutter will help a little with the background. Film is cheap so you can try a couple different speeds.

It's quite a big room too.

I agree with what Frank said,.. that will help.

Or, get a tungsten film (ISO 400), buy a couple cheapo 200W light bulbs with reflectors from any hardware store ($10 each) and have somebody hold them higher closer to the ramp...and use support for your camera.