Under Florescent Lights

doubs43

doubs43

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IMO, overhead florescent lights are about the poorest of all lighting and make it difficult to get a decent shot. Earlier this week I was in the office one evening and had a Leica IIIf with me. My Broker was working late so I sneaked into his office and took this shot with a 50mm Summar. HP-5+ @ 400; 1/25 @ f/2.2. It turned out better than I expected.

Walker
 
I'll bet that same shot in color would be ghastly. I have been thinkong about the use of full spectrum (most likely a misnomer) flourescent coil lamps as light sources.

As another member pointed out the color temperature isn't constant until the lamps have been on for a while. Some 15 minutes or so.

Seem that they would be fine for B/W.
 
An important thing about shooting with fluorescent is to keep shutter speed below 1/50 (or 1/60), depending on frequency in your country's power grid.
 
It is possible to be taking your photo, or at least part of it depending on the type of shutter, during that part of a second when the light is off, since it turns on and off with the cycles of the AC. Not likely, but possible.

I don't know about the so called full spectrum, but most all fluorescent lights are deficient in red, hence the sickly green cast. The first time I tried to take full length portraits for a couple of people who needed them to apply for a US Army job, I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. It wasn't until later that I read what my problem had been. Some filters help, and the printers can help too, as long as they know what they are doing and care.

It isn't usually a problem with b/w.
 
The light looks great in the shot, Walker. I think all the paperwork and his shirt are acting as reflectors and filling in the shadows.

I've been surprised by the color temp of the flouresecent lamps these days. It's either that they've changed or my one-hour lab is filtering out the sickly greenish-bluish cast. My negs show a definite blue cast, however. I'm finding that when I use daylight balanced color film the result is a definite and more pleasing yellow hue, which is much easier to minimize in PS (heck maybe even a cooling filter will work!).

I've attached one uncorrected image as an example. I also shot in my son's karate facility (which auto-corrected fairly nicely) and the result is similar.



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Someone at photo.net pointed out that some of the newer films have a "fourth layer" that is more forgiving with flourescent.

I noticed that in a couple of shots in my office that Kodak 400uc is somewhat forgiving.
 
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RayPA said:
The light looks great in the shot, Walker. I think all the paperwork and his shirt are acting as reflectors and filling in the shadows.

I've been surprised by the color temp of the flouresecent lamps these days. It's either that they've changed or my one-hour lab is filtering out the sickly greenish-bluish cast. My negs show a definite blue cast, however. I'm finding that when I use daylight balanced color film the result is a definite and more pleasing yellow hue, which is much easier to minimize in PS (heck maybe even a cooling filter will work!).

I've attached one uncorrected image as an example. I also shot in my son's karate facility (which auto-corrected fairly nicely) and the result is similar.
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Click to expand...

Thanks, Ray. There was a time when film makers offered a color film balanced for florescent lights but I don't know about now. As already mentioned, there are filters that correct daylight film for both florescent and incandescent lighting.

I think your observation about florescent lights is also correct; i.e., they are now making florescent lights that are daylight balanced or close to it. Your picture is much closer to being balanced than I'm used to seeing from daylight film taken with artificial lighting.

The biggest problem I've found with overhead lighting is the shadow that make the eyes difficult or impossible to see. In my shot I think the reflection from the papers helped to open up the face even though the eyes can't be seen because he's looking down.

Walker
 
If you think fluorescents are bad try shooting under sodium vapor, mercury vapor or metalhalides in polished reflectors in an industrial environment. In the old days there were only three or four types of fluorescents and now there must be a hundred each with a totally different color spectrum. There are a few really good color correct tubes available in both tungsten and daylight color balance. They're not perfect but very close. The chroma 50 bulbs are a very good example of daylight balanced tubes with a very high CRI (color rendering index). The higher the CRI the better the color. I use chroma 50 or equivalent in my studio and have no problem shooting transparencies under them. I've worked many times using Kinoflo (not certain of spelling) motion picture lights that are fluorescents and had good results. Kinos come with both 3200K and 5000K bulbs.
 
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x-ray said:
If you think fluorescents are bad try shooting under sodium vapor, mercury vapor or metalhalides in polished reflectors in an industrial environment.<Snip>
Click to expand...

I worked in heavy industry for a few years but not as a photographer. I often wondered about photographing under the various lights. Primarily we had flourescent and mercury vapor. I've read a little about industrial photography and most shots used additional lighting because the overhead lights cast deep shadows in areas where detail was needed. Medium and large format dominated then and I image are still the best choices for serious industrial pictures.

Walker
 
There are some amazing examples of open flash (bulbs) used in that kind of heavy industrial environment in my 1947 edition of "Graphic Graflex Photography". I am so glad I don't have to try and make those kinds of shots for my living... Yikes!

William
 
Many of my "environmental portrait" shots in the RFF gallery were shot under typical office/store interiors, often with a mix of lighting types even including daylight. I've found the Kodak Portra 400UC has a hard time with mixed light, while Fuji NPH 400 and NPZ 800 are much more forgiving. Perhaps it's that 4th layer... My main remaining problem is the direction of the light, not as pleasing from above.
 
Doug said:
Many of my "environmental portrait" shots in the RFF gallery were shot under typical office/store interiors, often with a mix of lighting types even including daylight. I've found the Kodak Portra 400UC has a hard time with mixed light, while Fuji NPH 400 and NPZ 800 are much more forgiving. Perhaps it's that 4th layer... My main remaining problem is the direction of the light, not as pleasing from above.
Click to expand...

I'll take that advice from you, Doug. You're getting great results!



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