White balance woes!

Ran into a situation on Valentine's Day and wondered if anybody had any thoughts/suggestions/tips/etc ...

 

I was asked to shoot a luncheon fundraiser for a large non profit organization. Typical ballroom with terrible lighting. Some 300+ attending. Up on the stage they had guest speakers and live entertainment.

 

What drove me nuts was that the crowd eating around large round tables in the ballroom were lit one way (mostly fluorescent lighting inside covered fixtures) while everyone on stage was lit with ceiling-mounted spotlights.

 

I had no problems shooting one or the other. But when I tried to capture the wide view of the audience watching a speaker or performer, everybody sitting down looked fine but everyone on stage was a shade of orange.

 

I'm sure this isn't a new situation for many. But it was for me. Anything that might help me next time would be appreciated!

When I first had my Nikon I had same the issue at a wedding reception (family shoot for fun -- there were pros.). I was able to correct pretty well after the fact using Canon Printer software and Nikon NX 2. Now knowing the camera well, I would set up to change white balance on the fly with one with one of the programmable controls. You don't say what system but most seem to have something similar. If you shoot raw you can simply change the white balance as you process the images.

I've corrected for that dual lighting situation in post by modifying the white balance in just part of the image. I used a layer mask in Photoshop Elements, and I've done it in Lightroom with an adjustment brush or gradient.

Thanks! I can change white balance on the fly as suggested. But that only corrects if I'm shooting the stage by itself or shooting the ballroom floor by itself. The problem I was asking about is what do you do if you want both the floor and stage in the same shot? Leslie confirms what I thought ... that the only way to deal with the dual lighting situation is through post processing.

At least in the Canon printer software, you pick white in the critical area and let the rest fall where they may. I'm not a heavy in PP. There are plenty here who have a better grasp of that! Best of luck, keep shooting!

There are two ways in which I would deal with that:

 

1. Let it happen

 

2. Shoot b&w

 

A slightly more involved solution (but not that much more involved) would be to use DxO's multi-point WB tool. I use DxO but I have not used MPWB so I can't speak from experience. However, try this tutorial:

 

http://lifeafterphotoshop.com/dxo-multi-point-color-balance-tool/

 

BTW you can download a fully-functional 30-day trial of DxO Optics Pro if you decide to try this.

Thanks again, Sandy! And kdghantous ... I'm going to check out DxO. Thanks for the tip!

I think you found your answer. If you have two different light types (different source wavelengths) in one image, a single white balance doesn't do well for the entire image.