Yellowish indoor photos

[bcambo]

I am a fairly new photographer. I have only used entry level digicams until I purchased a Olympus 35-SP a few years ago. My rangefinder gives me superb outdoor photos. Smooth and sharp, indeed.
I am disappointed with my indoor shots, especially with a flash.
It seems somewhat tricky to take sharp photos indoors with less than bright lighting.Many of the photos seem to have a yellowish cast to them. Perhaps a different filter might help? I have been setting the shutter speed to 60 on the camera and am experimenting with a non-bouncing Canon flash.
Frankly, I am currently getting better pictures indoors with an Apple 5S smartphone.
On the other hand, I am really impressed with the build quality on my Olympus rangefinder. I appreciate using something that was probably built while I was in high school 40 plus years ago.

 

[tomnrides]

Try modern Fuji color neg films -cheaper ones.

 

[jammcat]

Most colour films are balanced for daylight. When you shoot indoors your colours can be green or orange without corrective filters, depending on the type of lights. The problem is that any filter will eat up more stops of light and you'll find it even harder to get sharp photos indoors.

Your iphone has an auto white balance setting-- your film does not.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

The camera needs a filter to change the colour temperature. A series called Wratten 80A, 80B, 80C and 80D are what you should be looking at. There's a lot of them about.

Regards, David

 

[daveleo]

Shooting indoors, without a flash, you need a color-correcting filter, as noted above.

If you shoot with a flash and have room lights on (which is typical) you have the very challenging situation of mixed lighting (flash + incandescent ? flash + halogen ? flash + flourescent? flash + all the above ?) This means you most likely will have patches of greenish or yellowish or pinkish areas where the room lights dominate the flash (in spots). Expect that, and (my advice) learn to live with it.

I assume the Canon flash and your camera work well together ? Does that setup have TTL metering? Or is the flash just maxing out all the time? To get a balanced look (flash+ambient), use the slowest shutter speed that you can hold steady.

I do ramble, I know.

EDIT: Don't overlook the option to shoot ISO400 B&W film with no flash, at the slowest speed you can hold it. Solves a lot of problem !!

 

[LunoLuno]

The easiest way to avoid the yellowish cast would be making the flashlight predominant over the ambient light. It is often overlooked but higher syncro speed capability is one of the biggest advantages of shooting a lens-shutter camera like the 35SP. You set the SP's shtter speed at its highest speed rather than setting it at 1/60s, preferably stopping down the aperature a little bit as well, and that'll do the job in most cases. In this way, you don't need to worry anything about the complicated filter work.

However, if you want to balance the flashlight with the ambient light in your picture, that will be a totally different story . You need to put a filter (amber/warming) on your flash as well as on your camera (blue/cooling). Even a modern film in the market can not solve the problem as long as you shoot under the tungsten light conditions.

 

[ruby.monkey]

Alternatively (when under artificial light) shoot b&w with your Olympus and leave the colour work to your iPhone.

 

[charjohncarter]

Before everyone could afford an electronic flash we all used blue flash bulbs. You can achieve the same effect by putting a blue gel over your eFlash when shooting in mixed artificial lighting. There are many outlets that will even send you a free starter pack. These gels are now a necessity because digital color is less forgiving than film. You may not agree with this but just look through a photo magazine and see that there are tons of lighting equipment adds.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

You can kill odd areas of weird coloured lighting off by using a slave flash to bounce light off of the ceiling but use the bounced light as a fill-in to the main flash.

There's a bit of software out there and it's free, called filtersim that simulates filters. You can have a lot of fun with it and yellow orange tinted photo's but will eventually get them right.

Regards, David

 

[Gregoyle]

I'll second the Fuji consumer films for easy shooting indoors. I'm not sure how they do it, but they give great results whether indoors or outdoors. Another option is to take a picture of a grey card and use that for white balance after you've scanned the pictures.

-Greg

 

[bcambo]

Thank you all for the generous and useful tips. I have run some black and white film thru the camera while photographing indoor family events (without flash) and have been rewarded with some interesting photos. It helps if my subject isn't moving since I am shooting wide open in imperfect light while trying to hold the camera steady. Black and white film makes interesting portraits, especially if my subject is unaware of the picture taking.