Stadium Lighting

Im going to shoot a friend's son in a high school soccer match

tomorrow. The game will start around dusk and will be lit by those

standard high school stadium lights by the end. I was wondering if

those lights are really warm, as I imagine they might be. Will I

need a light cooling filter, like 82A to compensate, or is that

wrong. Any other filter suggestions, I am really not familiar with

this lighting. Btw, I am shooting TMAX 3200 at 1600 because I think

it best and Superia 1600 because he insists on color and thats all

the local photo shop had on a day's notice. Any suggestions would be

fantastic.

The B&W film does not care what the color temp is....

 

 

 

Superia 1600 can be 'corrected' during printing if you ask.

 

 

 

Since you give no info on what lens you plan on using, it is hard to say you need a 300mm f2.8 lens and a monopod.

 

 

 

 

Just try not to produce a 'portrait' effect of a soccer game: you will have lots of grain with the two films you plan on using.

overexpose the superia by 1 stop and you should have no problems correcting for normal stadium lighting during printing/scanning. I hope you have a fast long lens.

You tend to underexpose in incandescent light, because B&W film is more sensitive toward the blue end of the spectrum. Also, incandescent light is usually more contrasty than daylight. In my B&W days (before auto-anything), I found it useful to open up about 1 stop from the meter reading. For sports venues, the exposure and processing was generally based on experience, shared amongst the photographers at the newspaper where I worked.

 

In any situation where the subject is strongly illuminated against a dark background, automatic metering is unreliable. I suggest using spot readings (or incident readings, if you can gain access) and locking the camera down.

 

I do not use compensating filters on the lens for color, and they're completely unnecessary for B&W. If you have a digital workflow, it's relatively easy to do this in Photoshop. If you use a conventional photoprocessor, the operators are reasonably good at adjusting for incandescent light. Gels on the flash are very effective in mixed lighting.

Mmmm,i hope you get better luck than i had the other night,LOL

<BR>The local rodeo had pairs of distinctly different lights-pink and green!<BR>Even with a digital 300D and all the white ballance tools it has i couldn't get it right

Stadium lights are generally not incandescent, they're usually metal vapor lamps, either mercury (for older or smaller installations) or high pressure sodium (for more modern setups). Neither has a "color temperature" as such, because both are bright-line spectra -- sodium vapor has the lines smeared because of pressure, so it has fewer wierd effects on perceived color, but they're still very much there.

 

B&W won't be affected much; in fact, if mercury vapor (bluish) lighting is in use, you may get more exposure than you expect because most films are more sensitive in blue/UV than in red -- it won't be enough to require compensation, but might make shadows a little less harsh. Color will almost certainly come out with either a blue-green cast or a yellow-orange cast, but that can usually be filter corrected in printing from negatives.

My suggestion: a monopod, a strong flash, a 200 - 30o mm lens, wiiiide, a Better Beamer, and good luck. Color neg or B+W film 800 Iso up.

 

No filter