Fluorescent Lights

[sergio_caetano1]

I was asked to photograph the interior of a drugs factory. Could you

help me answering the following: Utilizing strobes and 1/250 or 1/500

sec shutter speeds on my lenses, it will be enough to avoid the

invasion of the fluorescent (green) cast ?

Thanks a lot.

(Sergio Caetano)

[photodon]

A shutter speed of 60th or faster is all thats needed as long as you have enough strobe output to cover the area.

 

Flourescent lights are down in the 1/2 to 1 sec (wide open) range.

 

The lamps themselves will be pure white (burnt out) in you chromes.

 

Don Cameron

 

www.doncameron.com

[john_cole1]

Use Reala or Superia Neg film, they have a filter built into the film base. I've used it for interiors for years!

[david_grandy5]

Actually any pro colour neg film - the modern Fuji's, Portra's and the Agfa Optima's will have that forth emulsion that is very friendly with flourescent light.

 

As for your shutterspeed question with transparency film, it would depend on how bright the ambient light was. I mean if you were getting an exposure of 1/1 @ f8 then 1/125 @ f8 would kill the green dead. But if the ambient light was within two or three stops of your strobe exposure then there could be trouble.

[jason_greenberg_motamedi]

Can anybody explain what this fourth layer thing is? I shoot either chrome or B&W, so I have no experience with Neg film, but now and then I am forced to contend with the nasty green...

[jeffrey_scott]

I believe that filtration will depend on whether the drugs are legal or illegal!

[brooks short]

Sergio,

 

Most flourescent lights can be color corrected for daylight film by using a 40 magenta filter over your lens. Sometimes you can get away with a 30 magenta filter but usually a 40 magenta is better. If you want to be accurate, use a color meter and err on the side of more magenta rather than less. An FLD filter is so weak as to be almost useless. So you could use a 40 magenta filter on the lens and shoot available light if you're able to use a tripod and longer shutter speed.

 

On the other hand you may want to use strobe to stop motion if you are including people in your shot. In that case, put 40 green gels on your strobes to turn them into the color balance of the flourescent lights and bring the color balance of the 40 green strobes and the flourescents back to a daylight color balance with a 40 magenta filter on the lens. You can shoot daylight transparency with this technique and achieve near perfect color balance. Use a slightly longer shutter speed and you can hold some of the ambient light in the room

 

If there are daylight windows in the scene, you'll have to gel them with a 40 green gel also or they will look magenta. You can buy these color correction gels from Rosco in 40" rolls and smaller sheets.

 

If you do that, you can mix the ambient flourescent light with the strobe light in any ratio that you like.

 

Using some of the flourescent lighting at the location will give you a more natural light than blasting the scene with strobe and a fast shutter speed.

 

In the film industry they'll cover each fourescent bulb with a magenta tube-gel for color correction. But that requires a big budget and lots of time.