Yellowish Pic at Reception

[jill_wilhelm]

<p>Hey all - maybe you guys can give some advice - I sometimes am finding that at my receptions there is a ever so slight yellowish hue in the pics - not sure if I am being way to picky or not. I attached a photo for you to see. I am shooting with my Canon 5D , usually a Canon L 24-70mm 2.8 and a 430EXII Flash - usually bouncing off the ceiling. I am not sure if I need to use a filter of some sort or not. I do always shoot in RAW so I usually correct it in post processing but it would be nice to skip that step if I could. Not sure if the problem is because I am picking up the ambient light mixed with my bounced flash. How can I correct this? Thanks Jill</p><div></div>

[Matt Laur]

<p>How are you choosing/setting your white balance in situations like this?</p>

[william-porter]

<p>Jill,</p>

<p>There's no one perfect fix to the problem of color balance or avoiding unwanted color casts. I can't tell much from the little picture you included, other than the fact that the table cloth and the flowers are yellow. But in any case, your best bet is </p>

<ul>

<li>shoot raw, always;</li>

<li>set camera to auto white balance (AWB);</li>

<li>correct color casts as necessary in post-processing.</li>

</ul>

<p>If you really want to avoid the trouble of correcting in post, you could carefully set the white balance in the camera at the time of capture, using an ExpoDisc or a white card or something like that. But adjusting white balance constantly while you're shooting is MORE trouble than fixing occasional white-balance problems in post. Being able to put the camera on AWB and forget about it completely is one of the big advantages of shooting raw.</p>

<p>Will</p>

[lewis_hizer]

<p>I've noticed that if a ceiling is "off white" but not distinctly "cold" looking, it almost always imparts a yellowish tint to the bounced light, more so than you would expect by just looking at the paint color.<br>

I don't use Canon but on my particular Nikon, when the flash is in use, the camera overrides your own white balance settings and uses a preset that's appropriate to flash, similar to a "daylight" setting in terms of degrees Kelvin, although you can tweak it more blue or amber. At that setting, the longer your shutter is open, the more you record the orangeish tungsten light, or worse yet, the hideously yellowish spectrum from CFL bulbs. I see it just starting to appear at around 1/125th of a second.<br>

You could try a light blue filter on your lens or a pale blue gel over your flash head if you can't tweak the camera's white balance to slightly more blue. Increasing the shutter speed to decrease the recording of ambient background light works only up to your maximum sync speed. It also causes distant backgrounds (that the flash isn't reaching) to record darker.<br>

The problem is more likely when the reception shots are taken in a windowless room or after dark, when there is no bluish daylight coming through any nearby windows.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Usually, reception venues are lit by tungsten lighting, and unless you use your flash in a way to totally overwhelm the ambient light (not something most of us try to do), you are going to get the yellowish cast because flash is white balanced for daylight. So no matter how much you touch up the white balance in post, you will struggle to get reasonable looking images/skin tone if you've used a combination of ungelled flash in a tungsten (or whatever--some places have halogen or fluorescent lighting).</p>

<p>For tungsten you will need what's called CTO (orange colored gelatinous sheets), and they come in different strengths. Best thing to do is order a sample pack of Rosco gels from B&H or Adorama. The samples are about the right size to put over a speedlight reflector, so take the CTO ones out of the pack. I usually use full, 1/2 or 1/4 strengths, depending on the situation. Realize that you can't possibly do a precise correction, since tungsten bulbs vary as well. You then use the K temperature control on your camera to set a specific Kelvin temperature. Most of the time the gel info will tell you what K temp to use.</p>

<p>I usually gel if the reception (or ceremony) is at night, or inside where no daylight is coming in. If you gel with strong areas of daylight coming in, you will get bluish tints. Also realize that strong colors around subjects will give casts, such as the yellow table cloth above. You can't have perfect white balance all the time.</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>You should be able to manually correct your RAW for that easily. What color of white was the item you bounced off? Frankly I'm just thrilled when I have something <em>approaching</em> white to bounce off of!<br>

Of course in that particular pic, the table (light brown? yellow?) probably double bounced a fair amount of the flash's original bounce (based on the shadow position), certainly enough to throw the hue off. You've got to watch out for that... luckily RAW CC is so easy it's not even worth bothering (IMHO at any rate) w/ gels and such.</p>

[fotografz]

<p>Some cameras are better than others at AWB, but none of them are really very good when in extreme tungsten or mixed lighting situations ... like most reception venues unfortunately. To complicate matters, the newer power saving lights tend to be very warm. AWB is often way to warm. </p>

<p>Color balance is difficult to advise about because each person shoots differently ... some shoot more flash dominate, some more ambient dominate. The degree that you drag the shutter while shooting will alter the color balance.</p>

<p>In normal circumstances at a reception, the lighting may stay stable for periods of time, so if you can get the balance reasonably close, you can shoot with that setting for a while.</p>

<p>Because I tend to fall into the ambient dominate category, I tend to set WB manually using a pocket grey card or an XRite pocket passport. I shoot a frame of it in the typical lighting to set the WB, and you can also use it to further refine it for a batch of images in post. The XRite is of further help in that it helps with post adjustments for exposure levels.</p>

<p>The trick is to find out how to do manual WB quickly with your camera. On most of my cameras I can set a custom function to immediately go to manual WB and shoot a frame. One camera actually has a custom function that assigns the manual WB to the stop down button of the camera ... so when I press that button, it immediately fires and sets the WB. I often just use that one button solution to shoot the dress (if the Bride's dress is actually white).</p>

<p>This has cut my post processing time by a huge amount, and has helped quite a bit with getting more accurate color AND exposures. </p>

<p> </p>

[picturesque]

<p>Just now realized that you said you don't always shoot RAW. If shooting JPEG, I'd go with the manual white balance approach, with a gray card or with an Expo Disk or similar. However, if your lighting changes (also mix of flash to ambient, which can change anytime you bounce), you have to take another reading. And this method does not negate the flash white balance to ambient white balance disconnect.</p>

<p>I read that one wedding photographer just dials in K temperatures as he goes throughout the day. If you get good at that, it could save a lot of time, but getting good at that is the thing. :^)</p>

[jennifer_spencer]

<p>A friend of mine shoots portraits of children. Sometimes she works on the playground. One of her portraits was a great shot of a young kid on the way down a spiral slide - good composition, good capture of the kid, good expression, etc. But the slide was super-saturated blue-green paint and the child's face was, as a result, greenish on one side. That was due to natural daylight reflecting off the slide onto the child - a color cast. Not exactly a healthy look for skin.</p>

<p>In another situation, in a dark, high-ceilinged ballroom I shot, the venue staff had replaced all the bulbs in the hanging chandeliers with greenish CFL light bulbs, leaving higher recessed tungsten lights in the room, in the ceiling. Maybe waiting until they got a bigger ladder, or because the fixtures couldn't take the big CFLs - dunno - but it was ugly. My flash was white, and even if I'd gelled it to be another color, there would have been problems due to the mixed lighting, no matter what Kelvin setting I could have chosen. In another ballroom with a low, low ceiling, there were all tungsten fixtures that looked orange. Even my lowest K setting looked yellow. I gelled my flash and I was able to take out a great deal of that as a one-stop setting change in post production. I still had some tweaks to do, but if I'd mixed my own flash as white with that tungsten, it would have been worse.</p>

<p>Sometimes you get color cast, mixed color lights, or just a super-heavy tungsten that you cannot do much about with a white balance setting change. Sadly. Especially in reception halls. The tablecloth was working against you here, too. Dunno if you have considered gelling for these dark halls?</p>

[fotografz]

<p>Actually Nadine, I use manual WB whenever possible, and I only shoot RAW. In post, RAW files have the same "As Shot" WB as Jpegs would, and jpegs can be custom White Balanced the same way as RAW files can in LR.</p>

<p>While it is true that manual WB doesn't eliminate the flash to ambient color temperature disconnect, (neither does setting the Kelvin temps), the slight blue cast disconnect is much less problematic than the nuclear effects of dominate red spectrum ambient on skin tones ... which get more difficult as you increase the ISO. As you increase ISO you can see the red channel blocking up/intensifying.</p>

<p>While I understand that most people will just continue to shoot Auto WB, that wasn't the OP's question. In the case the OP's example shot at ISO 1600, manual WB would have worked by WB metering off the bride's dress and as long as the ambient lighting didn't change drastically in temperature, whole series of shots could be done without the yellow cast or the reddish skin. As is, even after a custom WB in post, the skin tones are still to red. </p>

<p> </p>

[pete_s.]

<p>I don't like different color temperatures so I try to gel the flash to completely match ambient. With tungsten that's usually a full CTO. That way the mixture of flash and ambient has no bearing on the result.</p>

<p>I set the WB manually to what I know will be pretty close or do a custom white balance on a lastolite ezybalance. That way auto WB won't play any tricks on the histogram and the images will look consistent on the LCD.</p>

<p> </p>

[picturesque]

<p>Marc, I wasn't addressing your post in my latest post. I just missed the fact that the OP said she doesn't always shoot RAW. My understanding is that while jpegs can be white balanced like RAW files in LR, you can't do as much correction as you can with RAW files, something that I tested and found to be true. So my reasoning is that if shooting JPEG, one should try to custom/manual white balance whenever possible. If you can't do that, then use one of the presets, at least. I understand that you manual white balance even for shooting RAW, and wasn't saying the OP should manual white balance only when shooting JPEGs.</p>

<p>I also understand the exposure issues with the red spectrum and skin tones, which is why I tend to gel more and use flash more than most, probably. I personally like a cleaner, more neutral white balance, and I shoot RAW only, and yes, I use Auto White Balance. I don't find it slows me down in post processing and it sure is one less thing to think about. If I am shooting tungsten ambient only, I will try to dial in the correct white balance. Still, I wasn't advocating the use of AWB necessarily, particularly for JPEGs.</p>

<p>As you said in your first post, it is hard to give advice about the topic because everyone shoots differently. I also wasn't suggesting that dialing in K temps is the best thing to do, and yes, this method does not do anything for the flash to ambient disconnect--not claiming it does. Actually, I was trying to give the OP different methods to choose from and to help her understand why her image is yellowish.</p>

[rayt]

<blockquote>

<p>Marc Williams stated: "I use manual WB whenever possible, and I only shoot RAW."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The WB setting has no effect on a RAW image. RAW data is just that. No color correction has been applied. All the setting does is give your RAW processing software a starting point for the image. The WB setting is also used in the camera display as that is a JPG rendition of the RAW data. But the RAW data is not affected.</p>

<p>JPG's have in fact have been adjusted by the camera before being created. Try taking some JPG images of the same setting with different WB settings. Then transfer the files to your computer as JPG but not through LR. You will see marked differences in the color of the images.</p>

<p>I use manual WB all the time and use RAW images. I just leave the WB set on flash or daylight and never change the setting. I correct all the images later on the computer.<br>

<br>

As for the mixed color environments, especially with flourescent and incadescent lights there is little you can do. The eye is amazing at adjust for the differences, but the camera is not so good. You can get close, adjust for what is important in the image. Gel your flash for the dominant light source is about the best you can do. And since these are typically reception images these are probably not going to be enlarged to 20x30 or become tabletop displays.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Raymond--Marc was making that statement because he was clarifying his position in reaction to my post. Being the expert that he is, he knows all about RAW files and white balance. Also by 'manual white balance', he is talking about custom white balance, not the presets.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Why all the talk about jpegs? Jill says she shoots raw.</p>

<p>Her images are yellow primarily because she doesn't gel her flash.<br>

Secondarily because the camera can't always figure out the correct white balance.</p>

<p> </p>

[picturesque]

<p>Pete--look at the original post. OP says she doesn't always shoot RAW.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I do always shoot in RAW so I usually correct it in post processing but it would be nice to skip that step if I could.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yikes! I realized I made the mistake. Sorry, everyone...</p>

[picturesque]

<p>I guess I should read better. Anyway, if you do shoot only RAW, Jill, you are either not correcting enough in post, or are getting real casts from strongly colored sources, or (most likely) are reacting to the disconnect between ambient and flash white balance. Realize too, that if your flash is underexposed, which, with ETTL, can happen picture to picture, you will get more yellow tint with tungsten lighting. Same with shutter drag, as Marc pointed out.</p>

[savagesax]

The camera I have I shoot everything in RAW. The interesting thing about color is how your flash is set up. Not all flash tubes, flash units are the same, in fact you will notice on your camera when shooting with your flash set to ON, not AWB, the camera display may say something like 5300 in Photoshop. The thing is the color of flash tubes vary a lot. Im using Quantums and that rating is 6100 according to Quantum, but with the Canon lenses or the cameras, or both look yellow. This has to do with lens coatings, a protective filter and the actual setup of your camera's computer technology.

 

You can play around with the camera setting when using flash and dial in (custom setting) the best setting for the reception. The factory setting for the canon 1Ds mk3 is 5300 I think, but because of the temperature of my flash tube my custom temperature setting is 5750.

 

This is when things get confusing. I use mono lights at receptions, the goal is to be able to see the whole room. Well White Lightning strobes are not 5750 degrees. I found that setting the camera to the flash you are using for the camera works very well, so in my case it's set to 5750.

 

Not all things are white. When bouncing your flash anything can happen because there's probably nothing at the reception thats a true white. One of the best ways to get a true white is make your own bounce cards. In the old days I used a heavy plastic device cut out from a 1 gallon water bottle and sprayed it white, several coats, using of of those white spray cans from Home Depot. I then velcro'ed it to the flash unit. Worked really well.

 

With the Quantum flash units I use a dome over the flash and I don't need to bounce with the dome on. When using this dome I was getting hot spots on the faces of people, so in the center of the dome I sprayed it white, about the radius of a 1/2 dollar. Away went the hot spots. Pretty cool!

 

The Gary Fong's are pretty decent. They have a warming effect to the faces of people. Here's my issue with this. If you don't keep the Fong diffuser on all of the time and use a flash on every shot you have to do a lot of correcting in post. (Photoshop lightroom or CS...)

 

So the bottom line here is to be creative and set up your wedding gear for consistency. It may take several hours of experimenting, but you will surely get the results you want.

 

By the way, most flash tubes should be checked by the manufacturer once every year or 2. The tubes change temperatures as they get older. Before everyone runs out and starts adjusting the cameras, making and buying flash cards and diffusers, if it's been a few years since you had your flash serviced you may want to start with this. Your whole problem could be the actual flash tube.

[kamal_passi]

<p>thanks for sharing...</p>