Colour, tungsten, low light - how do you do it?

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Steve George

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Hi All

I will shortly be shooting at an event that is going to be indoors, and a lighting mix of tungsten (mostly) and a little candlelight - possibly a little window light too, but this going to be an evening event so not much.

Flash is not allowed because of 500 year old paintings on the walls.

Both colour and b&w have been requested so this is my dilemma. I am happy doing black and white at this kind of thing but colour is another issue entirely.

The most part of me wants to invest in a VC 1.2 / 1.4 or 1.5 lens to go with my f2's and trust to pro 800 and 1600 film - alas there seems to be no tungsten balanced film that fast though. So I'm worried the tungsten light will give a nasty colour cast to everything - and while grain will hopefully be less of an issue (I've seen some good 1600 and 800 speed shots) obviously I don't want that too ugly either.

So that's my question really - what do / what would you do in this kind of situation? Do you ask the lab to balance the whites when they print? Are there any other tips you can recommend for me to practice? Any recommended tungsten balancing filters?

I know digital for the same price as a VC 1.2 would give me fairly noise free, good white balance prints and negate the tungsten issue but I'd really rather stick with my film based rangefinder system if I can get good tungsten results with that.

Many thanks in advance.
 
Filters are dicey unless you can experiment or know the color temperature of the lamps -- a Minolta Colormeter would be helpful. Do you have time for test shots? Digital and white balance would be the easiest.
 
Steve George said:
Thanks! I'm sure photographers had to do this kind of thing pre-digital - how did they do it? :)
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correction filters might be able to get you close enough for the lab to correct the rest, but all that's for naught if you can't get the exposure (and you'll lose some with the factor). Any chance of bringing in your own lights (non flash balanced bulbs)? Can you replace any of the incadescents with higher wattage/balanced lamps?
 
Is scanning the negatives and using Photoshop or similar software to post-process the color balance an option? I have used auto-levels to color correct shots taken of prints, statues, and artifacts in museums. It essentially brings the "white-balance" of digital into the film domain.

Color correction filters will bring the negatives fairly close, but remember that you give up 1~2 stops to the filter. Your ASA800 film gets closer to ASA200. I would go with a 80a filter for the tungsten shots. In mixed light shots, where there is both fairly even amounts of windowlight and tungsten light, having an 82 series (cooling) filter "should" help. I've done the latter once. It "splits" the difference between the two lighting sources.

http://tiffen.com/Filter_&_Lens_Brochure/BFILT_08_09.htm
 
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How about one of those bright LED lamps that can strap to your head? You might look foolish come to think of it.
 
If you have the time It might be worth checking the color correction filters. I know you loose some light, roughly about a stop. You could run some test shots in any tungsten lit area and see how much light you'll loose.

A degree of fixing the balance is possible in photoshop but you might be loosing some density by doing this from a scanned image.
 
I have been shooting some art stuff here latly and I had to do alot of reading on it I shot a bunch of slides for art show stuff . You have to use 100 or lower slide film for what I was doing it for . I used a polarizing filter and a 80A with tungstan lights kinda low to reduce the glare and I shot 8seconds @f8. I was using my Nikon n80 and reconfirming its meter with my hand held spot. I did figure out after one dark roll to take the filters off the camera and put them over my second meter reading also.

I doubt any of this help but it sure fills good to get it off my chest.
Thanks Doc i feel ike a new man.
 
Steve George said:
Hi All

I will shortly be shooting at an event that is going to be indoors, and a lighting mix of tungsten (mostly) and a little candlelight - possibly a little window light too, but this going to be an evening event so not much.

Flash is not allowed because of 500 year old paintings on the walls.

Both colour and b&w have been requested so this is my dilemma. I am happy doing black and white at this kind of thing but colour is another issue entirely.
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I've done a lot of photography of stage performances and museum receptions (at the museum's request) so I've tried a lot of solutions to this problem!

Fortunately, your options are limited but pretty easy. First, a few things that probably won't work:

-- Conversion filter: Absorbs too much light for a low-light event.
-- Tungsten-balanced color neg film: Not available in 35mm.
-- Auxiliary lighting: Would help a lot, but I assume they won't let you do it. To match the existing light, you'd have to use a tungsten light, and that would mean dragging a cord around.

Options you do have:

-- Shoot tungsten-balanced slide film. Ektachrome 320T (I'm assuming it's still available!) responds pretty well to a 1-stop push. That will get you to EI 640, which is a bit marginal for candlelight with an f/2 lens, but might be workable if there's not a lot of motion involved.

Of course, that only works if slides are an acceptable finished product. If you need to produce prints...

-- Shoot color neg film and have the lab balance the prints for tungsten. I've had great results using the 800-speed color neg films, which have fine grain and friendly contrast. (Maybe they've improved the faster films since I last tried them, but I found their graininess a bit much, and their contrast often is too high for difficult lighting.)

The easiest way to help the lab with the print balancing is to carry a photographic gray card (aka Kodak Neutral Gray Test Card or similar) and shoot it on the first frame of every roll, in the light you're going to be using. The lab can use its instruments to measure the color balance of this card and then "lock in" that measurement to print the rest of the shots. If it's not convenient to carry the gray card, you can photograph the back of your hand instead -- the important thing is to give the lab a reference to a known color, so they'll know how to adjust for the light. The candlelight will still look a bit yellow, but people expect candlelight to look like that, so that's actually a good thing.

In fact, if in doubt, just shoot the scene as-is and tell the lab to do the best they can. The lighting may still look yellowish, but there's an old saying in the color printing business: "Any color error is acceptable as long as it's on the warm side."


One more thing -- that f/1.2 lens WOULD help a lot, so if you're going to be shooting this type of event often, it's a good investment! In low light, a faster lens can make the difference between shooting at 1/30 (usually pretty safe) and 1/15 (usually a bit risky) or having to use EI 1600 film (technically dubious) vs. EI 800 film (good quality.)

Good luck and have fun!
 
Another possibility: Shoot as you please, scan the neg's/slides and balance in Photoshop (no problem) and print from there. If you use an online Kodak or Fuji service you get very good photographic prints.
 
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I have been working on a project for the past year or so and when I started out I was petrified of the prospect of using mixed light sources. The levels of light were so very very low. Using Fuji films mainly 400asa Superior and normal processing I have been staggerd at the results. Some of the images are warm but not excessive. tThe mixed lighting has a wonderful natural look, with the daylight and warmer tungsten giving a more natural look to the image. It certainly is worth just giving the mulpti layered films a try. BUT if you need total accuracy you can only go down the path of lighting with one light source as the postings have suggested. Best wishes in your endeavours. Tony
 
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