Tiny florescent lit church. HELP!

[candi_sowers]

This may come across as rediculous to those of you who are wedding

photographers with years of experience. I am (sorta) a wedding

photographer in a very roural area of Tennessee. People here have

very little money and very little expectations. I have a good eye

for pictures and somehow wound up in this field with ZERO experience

and only nominal camera knowledge. My cutomers have been more then

happy so I don't fret it much.

 

QUESTION: I have an upcomming wedding in a church that is about 40'

X 50' (100 person capacity). All of the lighting is standard

florescent lighing. I find this causes bad skin tones and lots of

shadows. I've done two wedding in the past with such lighting and

did not have very good results. I am shooting film on a Canon EOS

and have the lenses I need but not the filters. I have only a small

flash that attaches to the top of my camera. I don't even know what

kind of film to buy. Can anyone help?<div></div>

[verdellnazgul]

Candi,

 

You'll need a filter since as far as I know there are still no fluorescent corrected films. Since you seem fairly inexperienced, keep in mind that you'll need to know the accessory size for your lens. Example, a 50mm lens will take a 49mm size filter. The kind of filter you need is most likely a FL-D type. Also, when you put a filter on it will reduce the amount of light getting through the lens. You'll lose about 1.5 stops I think. Maybe only 1.

 

You'll also need to know what type of film you are going to shoot. Daylight balanced film will be the FL-D while I think tungsten or regular light bulbs will be a FL-B. Not sure but you need to ask when ordering. One last thing is that different bulbs have different temperatures or colors so the filter might not work perfectly for all bulbs.

 

Best thing is to buy one and go check it out at the church. I don't know what lens choices you have but since churches can be pretty dim at best I'd buy it for your fastest lens since the filter will make a fast lens slower and a slow lens pretty much unusable.

 

Shoot back any questions you might have. Good luck!

 

Steve

[afs760bf]

Yes, you will need the filter for taking pictures especially without the flash.

 

But if you can use flash and bounce it off something that's pretty light, use your flash as your main light source on auto (set aperture to 8 on the camera, set camera shutter speed to flash sync speed, set flash for film speed and an aperture of 8 (or even 11 would probably be OK). In this instance, you should not need the lens filters. The flash should overcome the flourescent lighting. If you don't have a flash that bounces, the best investment you could make would be to pick up a used auto flash, such as a Sunpack 333D, 422D, 444D, or even a 411 if it's for inside work. This will help your photography more than any filter, and I just bought an almost-new 333D off that auction site for $9.99 plus shipping. I think Adorama still sells brand new 444D's for a hundred bucks. You can never have too many flashes.

 

It will also help if you can have the film developed at a pro lab and tell them the lighting conditions. Ask for proofs, and they'll try to color-correct the photos.

 

If you have time, take a friend to the church and take some pictures using your bounced flash as the main light source. Make sure you have enough distance between you and the subject to get light both front and rear. Then take some exposures and bracket the flash exposures (f5.6, f8, f11) and see what your results look like. Take a few without flash with the filter, if you can get one, but I think your best bet is to get a flash you can bounce, and position your subject so you can use your flash as the main light source. Try not to bounce the flash off the flourescent light fixtures.

 

Good Luck

[afs760bf]

Or, failing anything else, you can improve it somewhat if you just ask for the photos on disk and color correct in PS, PSP, Elements, etc. This is not good, but took about 15 seconds.

Best Regards<div></div>

[michael_madio]

Here's a quick "Wedding 101" to get you on your way:

 

1) Use professional ISO 400 daylight film (Kodak/Fuji/Agfa/Ilford)

 

2) Use a powerful flash (Canon 550EX/580EX, Vivitar 285, etc.)

 

3) Use an aperture of f/5.6 for individuals/couples and f/8 for groups

 

4) Use a shutter speed of 1/60s if there isn't much movement, and a speed of 1/125s if there is

 

Don't forget that if you use colour correcting filters on your lens, you must also use a similar filter on your flash. I don't think it's worth the trouble and expense. Don't bother with filters and use the money for a good flash instead (Vivitar 285 is cheap and powerful). Your flash will overpower the ambient light so you won't have to worry about the colour.

[verdellnazgul]

Candi,

 

As the others pointed out after my post, a good flash will take care of the color correction for you IF you can use flash during the ceremony. If you can't, you are stuck with the filters shooting ambient light. Also, don't rely on getting the files to a disc when shooting film unless you are prepared to pay extra. Plan on paying extra and price your photography accordingly. Another thing.....if you want to rely on a lab to color correct fluorescent for you, talk to them before hand and make sure they can do it. Get all the details worked out before you shoot. You don't want to find out afterwards that there is no fix for a situation you've found yourself in.

 

Steve

[craig_shearman1]

The last post about 400 film and Vivitar 285 is right on the mark.The flourescent lights become irrelevant at that point. My preference is Kodak Portra 400NC and I use www.cpq.net as my lab. The other thing you MUST do is buy a copy of Steve Sint's book Wedding Photography: Art, Business and Style. It's the Bible of wedding photography and the best source of information I have ever seen on how to shoot a wedding.

[picturesque]

I would also recommend using Fuji pro film. I know Fuji used to have an extra magenta layer which made it easier than with other films for the lab to correct for fluorescents. I'd try this first without filters to see if it will do it for you. If not, I'd filter when not using flash. When using flash, I'd overpower the fluorescents with the flash, but not entirely, or you'll end up with black/dark backgrounds. You'll still have a slight greenish cast to the backgrounds, but your subjects' color will be correct.

[discpad]

Hi Candi!

 

Nadine is right on the mark with using Fuji's color print film, not Kodak. (Agfa & Konica films have been discontinued).

 

Since the saturation will be lower with a FL-D filter (you can buy them on eBay), I would recommend Fuji Press 800 or Pro 800Z (same thing); and -- this is important! -- set your "ISO thingey" to 640 to tame down the grain in the shadows.

 

My suggestion would be to shoot a mix of shots with flash and no filter; and ambient light with the filter; then pick out which is better. Also, alert the lab that they may need to color correct for the fluorescent lighting.

 

By the way, where in Tennessee are you?

 

Cheers! Dan

[prime lens]

My repeated experience has been that in general, Fuji films (both slide and print) go a lot greener under fluorescent lighting, a lot faster, than Kodak films (both slide and print) do.

 

I'm not trying to contradict Nadine, just offering a contrasting perception. I think that Kodak VPS 160 or whatever they make now is likely to be hard to beat, but even Gold 200 (or Royal Gold 200) is quite tolerant of mixed lighting.

 

I think that managing filters under mixed lighting conditions is difficult at best. Do they really make green filters for a Vivitar 285 to match the fluorescent lighting so the strobe comes out white after making its way through the filter over the lens?

 

I've had some luck with mixed lighting at home using my digital point-and-shoot camera on a tripod and setting the custom white balance for the ambient lighting conditions.

 

Lacking a similar option, you might be able to get scans of your film at processing time and either adjust them yourself or have the lab do it. One problem is that most labs provide scanned images only in the .JPG format.

 

I really don't like the degradation that comes from repeatedly saving a .JPG file. Even adjusting a scanned .JPG once and re-saving it as another .JPG causes a loss that I can see. "Everybody" says it's all right if the image is big enough and you aren't printing large, but I can't stand it.

 

I save my intermediate processing steps in .BMP, uncompressed .TIF, or another lossless file format, and only convert to .JPG if necessary -- and as the last step after post-processing. (Not that any of the files I've uploaded here are adequately processed -- I have a history of using nothing more than Microsoft Photo Editor, which doesn't have "levels," "curves," or "unsharp masking." I have purchased PS Elements 3, and hope to provide more exemplary digitizations in the future.)

 

If you could get a lab to scan the film and give you a CD, DVD, or whatever with files saved in a lossless format, you could adjust the color balance or have them do it without the artifacts and loss of detail that go with .JPG files. Keeping unmodified copies of the original files is always essential.

 

I know this is my subjective, personal view, but I feel strongly about it. Two weathered maxims from the days before political correctness come to mind: "There's more than one way to skin a cat," and "One man's drink is another man's poison." On the Web, people now write "YMMV" -- truly one of the more inane Web-isms.

 

-- Steve

[lisa_berry___northampton_m]

during unphotogenic ceremonies, I focus on black and white. my clients have all been

delighted with the result. If you use 3200 speed film on a tripod, you can avoid being

intrusive with the flash, and the images will have a classy feel to them even if the church is

ugly. no one has missed the color.