Colour cast on print film under stage lights

[jamiewakeham]

Dear all,

Not specifically a rangefinder question, but given that you're easily the most knowledgable and helpful bunch I know of, here goes anyway:

Charity gig tonight at the school I work in. Lots and lots of stage lights. I'm (somehow) running lights and sound, performing in one act, and trying to get some useable photos!

I've picked up some Fuji Superia 1600 (figured I'd go for speed over grain!), but I'm getting worried about colour cast. I've read conflicting theories as to how to deal with it (that's what I love about the internet; you can always find someone to support any theory you like!) so figured I'd get the concensus.

Would you shoot without any correction filter, and trust that the lab will correct your prints? Or would you use an 80b or thereabouts to correct first? I don't mind a bit of a warm feel to the prints (it is supposed to be on a stage) and might not have too much time to play silly b*ggers changing filters on various lenses, which leads me to the former, but I'll take everything on board.

Thanks for all advice.
Jamie

 

[jaapv]

Hi!

Two things
I wonder, is the "colour cast" really a colour cast? It is part of the show to change the colour of the light and I feel the atmosphere is usually better served by not correcting.
Are you going to print directly, or scan and then print? If so, you can do your own correcting on the scans using Photoshop. Far superior, imho, than relying on filters or the lab with uncontrollable results.

 

[jamiewakeham]

Jaap,

I think it is a colour cast, because the colour temp of the lights will be about 3000K (as opposed to the 5500K of full-spectrum sinlight), but I agree that it will add atmosphere. I'm just worried that it might add too much atmosphere, I suppose!

I'll probably get the lab to print a 6x4 set to evaluate, and then I'll be scanning the best negs for display, whereupon I can try to correct them myself. I don't have PS, but I assume the GIMP will be able to do something similar?

Unless anyone suggests strongly otherwise, I'll not use any filters, then. I've heard I should overexpose by half a stop, though, to compensate for lower energy in lower temperature lights (or something like that?).

Thanks,
Jamie

 

[jaapv]

Jamie, I don't know Gimp, so I couldn't say. As to exposure, you'll have to use spot measuring or something close to that to get the best results in a spotlight situation. Average measuring will lead to gross overexposure in theatre photography. Don't forget to enjoy the performance as well! 🙂

 

[dmr]

Back years ago (1970's) when I took Stagecraft in college, we used three sets of lights, which was (at the time ... now?) supposedly standard practice for stage lighting.

First were white, and yes, my guess is that they were right about the 3200k of photofloods, maybe a wee bit warmer when they are dimmered.

Then there were banks of reds and blues, used for warmth and coolness.

I remember we did various combinations from a light pink to a deep eerie blue.

Of course there were the large follow spots, very bright electric arc lights, sometimes with gel filters, and the "baby spots" which could have about any gel in front of them, used to highlight various areas.

I also remember having no problem at all handholding under these lights and they tended to be bright. I probably did these with Plus-X, ASA/ISO 125.

Of course this was all B&W back then.

You may find 1600 to be too fast, actually.

If you use mostly the white, you'll probably have very good luck with regular print film done in a mini-lab If there's any variation from white, it's probably best to just shoot as is to capture the mood..

I've never done slides under this kind of light, but I would be tempted to use tungsten balanced film if I did.

I hope this helps. I admit some of this is kinda rusty and I haven't had any stage experience since.

 

[T_om]

Yes, your shots will have a color cast. The color will depend, of course, on the types and mixtures of the various light sources and reflecting surfaces.

No, there is no magic filter you can use that will correct every shot.

This type of problem is generally corrected in PhotoShop. It is not difficult to do.

You may even find the original color shift effects of the color cast to be somewhat pleasing, who knows.

Tom

 

[jlw]

I've done a LOT of photography under stage lights over 25 years or so -- I took up photography as an infant 😉 -- so here's a Theater Photography 101 primer:

-- Forget the 80b filter. It will eat up too much light, leaving you with unacceptably slow shutter speeds.

-- You do want to correct the color for the overall illumination (usually quartz lamps.) As someone else pointed out, a theater lighting design will usually include colored "gels" over the lights to create various moods and accents. If you don't do an overall color correction, these subtle color differences from the gels will be wiped out by the yellowish cast produced by the lamps themselves. In effect, your goal (or your lab's goal) is to correct the lamps' color back to white, so that the color of the gels OVER the lamps will be visible. This will give a more accurate rendition of the lighting design and do a better job of reproducing the effect that the audience saw.

-- The good news about this overall correction is that since you're simply correcting for the color of the LAMPS, which doesn't change throughout the show, you can use the same correction factor all the way through. That means that when you're having your work prints made, you need to tell the lab to pick one frame that they're pretty sure they can correct, then LOCK IN that corrrection factor for all the shots. (If they just leave the printing machine on automatic, it will get confused by all the different gel colors from scene to scene, and apply a different correction factor to every shot -- NOT what you want!)

-- You'll be able to do the same when you're working on scans of your pictures. Pick one frame that was NOT shot in a scene with heavily "atmospheric" lighting effects and has a good "target" (such as a close-up with a mix of flesh tones and neutral colors.) Adjust your software's color controls until you've got visually pleasing color. These color settings should be a pretty good starting point for all your other photos.

-- WARNING: This probably doesn't apply to our original poster's situation, but I'm including it for anyone else who might read this. There's one exception to the happy scenario above, and that's the dreaded carbon-arc spotlight. It's easy to recognize: it's a tube about four feet long, mounted on a stand and aimed by a crew member, that produces a tightly-focused, hellishly bright light with a strong bluish cast. It's often called a "follow spot" because it's used when the director wants a defined patch of light that follows a performer around the stage.

The reason it's a problem is that carbon arc is a completely different illuminant than regular quartz theater lights: the light is actually an electric spark between two carbon electrodes, and it is much more blue than the other theater lights. If your scene has a carbon-arc spotlight on it, there's no way to balance the spotlight with the other lights; it'll need a separate correction, much closer to daylight balance.

If you're shooting an amateur show in a fairly small theater, you probably won't have to worry about this: carbon-arc lights are big, expensive, and require a specially-trained operator, so you usually encounter them only in big theaters. Small theaters often have quartz spotlights that look similar, only smaller; they use a quartz lamp just like the other theater lights, so don't cause color-balance problems.

If in doubt, maybe you can ask the director, stage manager, lighting designer or light-board operator beforehand whether or not carbon-arc spotlights are used.

 

[dmr]

This is probably not the best example, but the shot below was a handheld "hail mary" shot at a concert last fall under bright stage lights with brightly colored fill spots. You can see that the flesh tones are sane, but the colors of the lights are very evident. This was most likely Fuji 800. May have been 400, but not 100% sure.

Jamie, I don't know Gimp, so I couldn't say.

(The) Gimp is a very good Photoshop almost-work-alike. We actually use it on some of the Unix machines where there isn't a reasonably-priced package similar to Photoshop. My only complaint is that it lacks the arbitrary rotate function.

Coincidentally, at a trade show a few years ago, I found myself at one dinner sitting right across the table from one of the Gimp developers. She said that "The Gimp" is what they prefer for its name, and that their goal was to make The Gimp be "what Photoshop wants to be when it grows up." 🙂 🙂

 

[jaapv]

Thanks dmr436, I didn't know that. Btw, did your camera use flash on that shot judging by the heads of the row in front of you? Must have been noisy there by the look of it.

 

[dmr]

Thanks dmr436, I didn't know that. Btw, did your camera use flash on that shot judging by the heads of the row in front of you?

I'm trying to remember. This was on the Olympus Stylus, and I don't remember turning off the flash, so I guess it fired. I was not really paying attention to shooting then, and it was indeed a hail-mary slop shot that worked. It's obvious that the flash is not the primary illumination of this shot -- no way would that small flash work for that size and distance. I admit I don't really know how the auto exposure/flash interacts for such lighting.

I'm attaching another from the same concert, which did not turn out as well. This shows good color/exposure of the performers in the follow spot, but is underexposed for those in the red stage light. This was again a hail-mary slop shot.

Must have been noisy there by the look of it.

That was a great concert! One of the best I've seen in a long time. Yes, those do tend to be loud. I thought the loudness was just right for the occasion. 🙂

 

[phototone]

The reason it's a problem is that carbon arc is a completely different illuminant than regular quartz theater lights: the light is actually an electric spark between two carbon electrodes, and it is much more blue than the other theater lights. If your scene has a carbon-arc spotlight on it, there's no way to balance the spotlight with the other lights; it'll need a separate correction, much closer to daylight balance.

Having been a carbon-arc follow spot operator, and having run theatrical carbon arc lamphouses for years, I would like to make a correction to your information above.
The actual light output from a high intensity carbon-arc spotlight, such as the Strong Super-Trooper, is not from the electrical arc, rather it is from an incadescent gas ball from the phosphors in the core of the positive carbon rod. The electric arc serves to keep the phosphors burning creating the incadescent gas ball. The color temperature is very close to daylight balance, thus looks blue under tungsten or quartz stage light.

Now-a-days, you are just as likely to encounter a Xenon arc spotlight, which uses an arc inside a vacume tube to ignite the captive xenon gas to incadescense. Again, a color balance close to daylight. Either one of these types of spotlights could be gelled to approximate the color temperature of tungsten or quartz, it depends on the operator and what effect the lighting director wants.

In regards color photography under stage lighting. Years ago, you could purchase a "tungsten" balance color negative film, which would be ideal, as you do not want to balance for the gels, but rather the underlying tungsten or quarts bulbs in the lighting intstruments. Now with only 'daylight" balanced negative films readily available, you are starting off with a mismatch, and then having to correct for that, and if there are no scenes that are illuminated with ungelled light, then there is no way to get an accurate balance and thus capture the true colors of the lighting effects. An 80b filter (which corrects daylight film to tungsted) is not a bad idea, even though it does cut down on the light reaching the film severely. But with ultra-fast film, this may not be an issue.

If you are going to scan your negs yourself and then make prints in the digital realm, then you have almost unlimited corrections available. If you are going to have prints made from a lab, their equipment *may* not be able to make the broad corrections that will be needed, as there are limits to the corrections on photofinishing equipment.

 

[jamiewakeham]

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I ended up shooting unfiltered, and asking the lab to correct everything by the same (averaged) amount, which seems to have worked fine. I've also had everything scanned so I can re-correct in the Gimp (which lives at www.gimp.org, is free, and seems to do everything I've ever wanted to do with a photo) and print copies for all the kids.

Cheers,
Jamie