fluorescent lighting .. I give in! (model - Priscilla) « Neil vN

Tangents

fluorescent lighting .. I give in! (model – Priscilla)

April 20, 2009

[ Nikon D3; Nikon 200mm f2 AF-S VR .. 1/100th @ f2 @ 1250 ISO ]
click on the image to see a larger version

My friend Steve Z from Colorado was around for a few days, visiting friends and family here in NJ. So we got together to do a photo shoot, and I arranged to meet up with Priscilla, a model with whom I’ve worked before. I also was fortunate in getting permission to photograph inside the Paterson museum - an interesting historic building.

Steve Z is also into photographic lighting, so we packed up a bunch of gear - a beauty dish, softboxes, speedlights and video lights. We were ready for a lot of playing around with lighting.

When we arrived at the museum, my heart sank when I saw the place was flooded with fluorescent light. In my experience thus far, fluorescent lights = ugly light. I decided that perhaps this was an opportunity then to get some material for a tutorial page on how to use flash with fluorescent lighting. When I’ve dealt with the ugly green look of fluorescent lighting before, I always over-rode it with flash. Fluorescent lighting often has a green color cast, and the discontinuous spectrum makes it difficult at times to get great skin tones. Also the lights flicker and the White Balance can even vary as you hit different parts of the cycle. So I thought this might just be material for a tutorial here …

In order to show that fluorescent lighting can cause that kind of change in WB for a sequence of images, I set an approximate WB via the Kelvin setting on my camera. With the Nikon D3 set to continuous drive, I fired off 3 bursts of about 8 frames each .. my shutter speed at 1/100th for the one burst, and 1/60th for the other two.

And to my surprise, the lighting looked awesome! Even light, image after image.
Not even a hint of green. It was warmer than daylight, but looked great.

So for much the entire 2+ hour photo session there, we shot with the available light .. fluorescent lighting! Knock me over with a feather.

That photo above there is all available light!
In post-processing the RAW file, I reduced some of the yellow in the WB as I recorded it, and also added a touch more magenta to give me a skin tone I liked. And with the local corrections in ACR / Bridge, I reduced two hot spots, and brightened up her eye a little bit.

I am still surprised that the lighting was so good and so even, especially from fluorescent lighting. So much for my preconceived idea that fluorescent lighting has to be bad.

Obviously this will depend on the specific fluorescent lights that are used, as well as other influences, such as the age of the bulbs. But whatever fluorescent tubes they used in the museum, must have had some magic done to it, for the light look surprisingly good.

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Now you may well ask what is that color and shading there in the background.
And then I will have to explain to you that it is actually the USS Holland – the US Navy’s first commissioned submarine.

See that grading in the tones and colors on the concave hull?
That is the background at f2 as shot with the Nikon 200mm f2 AF-S VR lens, (B&H).

You know, looking at that image at the top, I think I just fell in love with this lens again.

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26 Comments »

Ok Neil, you have fallen into the trap so many experts who blog love to step into. Your statement: “I set an approximate WB via the Kelvin setting on my camera” hardly falls under the instructional category. Could you be more explicit in describing exactly what settings you use? Do you have a hard and fast Kelvin setting? Do you use a light meter? You said this experience was a great opportunity for a tutorial page on shooting with florescent light. I am hoping the tutorial is coming soon because this sure as hell ain’t a tutorial. Its a “look what I did”.
Craig

Comment by xlphotog — April 21, 2009 @ 7:01 am
Hi there Craig ..

This posting is just a “look what I did”?
Oh, I think I should be allowed a few of those. ;)

Anyway, I think somewhere in this post, the message may have been scrambled. When I first saw the venue had so much fluorescent light, I thought I might be able to do a tutorial on how to deal with that kind of lighting. Instead however, the light looked so good, that there was no “coping with it”. And hence, no tutorial yet on the subject. Just a “look what I did”.

As to the settings, the Kelvin setting I used was 4350K .. it looked pretty good on my LCD screen, and that’s where I kept it, except for when I used video lights. (That’s a separate posting however.)

How did I get to 4350K ?
Well, I often use 3700 or 3850K when using a 1/2 CTS filter on my speedlight. And this lighting looked slightly less warm than that. So I just dialed my Kelvin setting up a bit .. a few clicks, and it landed on 4350K .. and a test shot showed it looked pretty good. So I left it there.

Getting an exact WB setting would not necessarily be a useful thing to chase here, since in editing the image in ACR / Bridge, I can change the WB to where I like it – whatever that WB might be. And I often settle for a pleasant WB, as opposed to what might necessarily be a correct WB.

In this instance, (checking now in ACR), I see I had changed it from 4350K (and -5 on the Tint), to 4400K (and +10 on the Tint).

Those are the specifics .. but I’m not sure the actual numbers have more value here than my seemingly vague description of “setting an approximate Kelvin setting.”

And nope, no hand-held lightmeter. Just the camera’s.

Anyway, I “sure as hell” will try to be a better tutor next time.
Soon even.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 21, 2009 @ 7:30 am
Niel, you could make the available light on the backside of the moon look good. Thanks for this….

Comment by Daniel Sullivan — April 21, 2009 @ 8:09 am
Hi Neil,

This is kind of off topic of this entry but some things have been bugging me lately that this post did rekindle in my memory(referencing your shutter speed and the lens you used and then your mention of shooting RAW). It’ss fine if you need to address these in a later blog entry.

1)You’re getting away with shutter speeds of 1/100th and slower with a 200mm lens thanks to the VR of course but let’s say for instance you were shooting with a D90 and a Tokina 50-135mm f2.8 lens(which is what I’ve got right now along with a D50 and 18-70mm f3.5-4.5). Now the Tokina doesn’t have anything like VR on it so what would you assume a safe shutter speed to use when stretched out to 135mm? would you say 1/200th seeing as I’m using a crop sensor? Also if you were using the same setup, do you think you’d be going with tripod/monopod shooting right off the bat?

2)now this is going to start a big discussion probably but here goes: I started off shooting JPEG, then switched to RAW but now I’m back JPEG. I use Lightroom 2.0 and as mentioned above shoot Nikon. In the testing I’ve done the RAW files of course start off bland and seem to take quite a bit of work to get to looking decent but the other big thing I’ve noticed is that the RAW files show a lot more noise. Still I tried to justify RAW telling myself that the quality of the pic would be better, but when zoomed in 100% I saw no difference between some shots I took RAW/JPEG. And I really must say that I know I do not have bad eyesight, I’m actually quite particular. And I’ve also experimented with highlight recovery and fill light through lightroom with JPEGs and RAW files with no success in seeing “the light” so to speak. At this point the only thing still attracting me to RAW is the flexibility in regards to White Balance which if I understand you correctly is something you still need to do in camera while shooting RAW anyways??? Perhaps you can do a good thorough comparo with examples in the near future?

Thanks Neil, and as always your site and information ROCKS!

Comment by brett — April 21, 2009 @ 8:25 am
Hi there Brett ..

Re your questions:

1. In this scenario, if I had to use a slower lens, or a camera with less wonderful high-ISO performance as the Nikon D3, then yes, I’d be on a tripod. (But there are ways around that … as I’ll show in a blog posting coming up soon.)

As to whether or not the crop factor has an influence on how much more camera shake becomes visible. I’ve seen countless arguments for and against this .. long discussions about focal length, image size, sensor size, crop factor, etc.

For me it just makes absolute sense that with the crop factor of most D-SLRs, that the angle of view is reduced (as opposed to using the same lens on a full-frame camera.) Hence for the same amount of shake, the aplitude of movement is magnified in relation to the image you get with the full-frame camera. And therefore I just can’t see how it can be argued that the crop factor has no influence on camera shake.

So yes, increase your shutter speed accordingly, as if you were using the “effective focal length” of the lens. (And for those who are about to argue the use of that phrase, yes I know it is only a crop, but you are seeing the same angle of view as the “effective focal length” when used at a distance where you yada yada yawn.)

2. If you RAW files look bland in a RAW converter like ACR / Bridge, then you need to create a default where the image has punch.

Similarly, if your RAW files show more noise, it could be the specific RAW converter that doesn’t handle noise well, or you have it to a low default noise reduction setting. It seems like my D3 bodies have a more aggressive noise reduction algorithm as a default. So the out-of-camera JPGs will appear to have less noise than if I just left it to the default of whatever RAW conversion program.

The flexibility and latitude that RAW allows me (along with speed of workflow), means that I am unlikely to ever move away from shooting RAW.

A posting on RAW vs JPG ? Does the world need another one? ;)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 21, 2009 @ 8:43 am
Hi Neil,

I’ve been following tangents for a long time and I’ve always wanted to see more of the shots you get. Do you post them anywhere? I’m sure you were able to get more than one good shot of Priscilla :)

Thanks,
Erik

Comment by Erik Patton — April 21, 2009 @ 8:46 am
Erik .. Priscilla is one of those models who is photogenic, and so easy to work with, and who also intuitively understands what is needed to make a photo work … that I’m sure she’ll pop up again on this blog. ;)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 21, 2009 @ 9:08 am
Hi Neil,

the good light quality might be due to the fact that museums frequently use higher quality fluorescent lights.

Normal tubes have three different phosphorescent coatings inside the tube which emit red, green and blue light (or something in that ballpark at least). However with three coatings neutral white light cannot really be achieved, the red end is normally underrepresented and the spikes are not quite in the right place, hence the greenish cast.

This can be overcome by using 5 or 7 coatings but at the cost of reduced energy efficiency. Thus households, hotels etc will normally employ the type giving the colour-casts, museums, print-shops, etc will often invest in the higher grade tubes.

There is a measure for this called CRI (colour-rendering-index), measuring in % how well the tube reproduces incandescent light. A normal fluorescent light tube might be in the 80s, 99% are however on the market. (At a much higher price point both in purchase and operation)

People investing into these tubes would probably also invest in electronic ballasts, explaining that you found the lights to be flicker-free.

Greetings from Germany,
Niklas

P.S. Your site taught me sooo much … Thanks!!

Comment by Niklas — April 21, 2009 @ 9:32 am
Niklas .. thank you for the thorough explanation.

I am sure there is much variety in fluorescent lighting. But this was a surprise to me that it could actually look this good!

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 21, 2009 @ 11:07 am
Brett,

To answer your question 2, one possible explanation that RAW has more noise than JPEG is that you may have turned on noise reduction option, which only applies to JPEG, I believe. There could be other in-camera filters that are applied when saving the image as JPEG. At full resolution, one may not notice any difference in quality straight out of the camera. However, RAW is a lossless format, while JPEG is a lossy compression format. Adjustments that you make in any RAW processing programs (such as Lightroom) to a RAW file does not reduce its quality. However every time you change and save a JPEG, some image information/detail is lost.

It is true that you can set the white balance on the camera as you take the picture. Basic/entry level DSLRs do not even allow you to set the Kelvin temperature. However, light condition change. Like Niel and others have said, florescent bulbs tend to flicker and the colour temerature may shift. Plus, you may not know “exactly” what the light source’s colour temperature is. That’s why you may need to fine tune the white balance in post processing, and RAW would give you the advantage that changes you make will not degrade the original image.

Of course, the JPEG vs RAW discussion can go on forever. It will depend on your personal need. Do you want to trade convenience for flexibility and quality? This should be the question you ask yourself (instead of quality) when choosing which format to save the images.

Comment by Albert — April 21, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
albert, it’s always been my understanding that Lightroom performs non-destructive editing….JPEG or RAW. it only makes changes to ‘previews’ of the files. hopefully Neil or someone else will chime in to clear that up.

Comment by brett — April 21, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
I have shot in flourescent light on several occasions and have never experienced bad or ugly lighting. I shoot RAW with a Nikon D3 and I do a lot of photography at a TV station where they use “Cold Lights” (flourescent lights). I carry with me a kit of flourescent lights to fill in to the existing lighting setup and come out with great shots. In fact, I have even shot with flash on the existing cold lights setup and the skin tones come out great with a little tweaking in photoshop.

I have also used flourescent lights in my own studio and I believe it to be a beautiful light source.

The trouble I am facing is with the ugly Argon lights when shooting industrial photos. They give out all sorts of colors each one of them and its hard to mix flash or tungsten or flourescent lights with argon lights.

Comment by Roshan Crasta — April 21, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
Roshan .. I am sure that the cold lights used in a studio would look great. For a while I also had the Spiderlight TD5 / TD3 lighting kit – a continuous light studio system – and it has the Daylight-balanced fluorescent tubes. It definitely looked good.

I guess in a way I was so used to the grungy look of the cheaper fluorescent lighting seen in warehouses and offices .. and as I explained elsewhere here, it was a very pleasant surprise to me that I was mistaken and that there is actually fluorescent lighting used in buildings that looked good.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 21, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
Neil,

First let me start by saying it’s because of you that I am a better photographer.

Now on to my comment. Do you think that the florescent lighting in the museum could have been color corrected in the first place. I actually use 5500k florescent bulbs quite often. I’m thinking that maybe the museum is using something similar so that the colors of what they are trying to show are as true as can be.

Comment by Andrew Clark — April 21, 2009 @ 8:52 pm
Neil,
Since fluorescent lighting can vary in color temperature, I guess the best thing to do is to take some test shots with various WB. What did you set your WB as a starting point?

Comment by Stephen — April 21, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
Hi there Stephen ..

You must have posted just as I was writing the details about the choice of Kelvin setting as a reply earlier on here.

Here it is:

The Kelvin setting I used was 4350K .. it looked pretty good on my LCD screen, and that’s where I kept it, except for when I used video lights. (That’s a seperate posting however.)

How did I get to 4350K ?
I often use 3700 or 3850K when using a 1/2 CTS filter on my speedlight … and this lighting looked slightly less warm than that. So I just dialed my Kelvin setting up a bit .. a few clicks, and it landed on 4350K .. and a test shot showed it looked pretty good. So I left it there.

It isn’t an exact method at which I arrived at the WB I used, and I do rely on the flexibility of RAW to carry me when I edit the images afterward. And in this instance, I changed the WB from 4350K (and -5 on the Tint), to 4400K (and +10 on the Tint) in ACR.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 21, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
Hi Neil

Have you done a series on flash filter use?

Also, is there any references to read re kelvin numbers? I’d never have known to start at X say for tungsten or Y for flourescent etc.,

As for your teaching style, works for me – keep up the terrific work.

Comment by hoddo — April 22, 2009 @ 8:57 am
There are a number of posts here that have mentioned gelling the flash for Tungsten, and there are (at this point) two specific articles here about gelling for tungsten:
- flash and tungsten light
- embracing tungsten light
.. but I will continue to add more on the topic.

Fluorescent is notoriously difficult though to get specific Kelvin values for, because their colour temperature vary so much. Now, Tungsten also varies a lot and gelling for a very specific Kelvin setting is for the most part beyond what I want to, or need to, achieve.

But there is less concern with accurately gelling for Tungsten, because tungsten lighting is warm, and we’ll happily accept a warm color cast … as opposed to accepting a greenish-tinted color cast as you might get from some fluorescent lights. And, in my opinion, that makes specific gelling for fluorescent more difficult.

But this is definitely an area I need to investigate much more, as shown by the results above, which was a surprise to me.

Specific Kelvin settings? Generally, I would use the default WB settings in my camera .. and then fine-tune it as part of my usual raw workflow.

Neil vN
Comment by Neil — April 22, 2009 @ 11:48 am
brett, yes it is true that Lightroom uses a sidecar XMP file to keep track of the changes that you make to an image. However, as soon as you try to re-save a JPEG file with the changes, the application decompresses the JPEG (which extrapolates any details that may have been lost when it was originally saved), apply the changes, then compress it again back to JPEG. So basically you have 2 quality changing steps. Working with RAW and saving the final image as JPEG, you’ll eliminate the 1st quality changing step since RAW is not compressed.

Your previous post also mention trying highlight recover and fill light. To test it effectively between JPEG and RAW, you’ll need an image with really over/underexposed parts, close to highlight/black clipping. RAW would be better in these situations because JPEG would have lost more information around these highlight/black clipping areas.

Like I said before it is pretty much a personal preference. It will depend on what you need the image for and if you want convenience or flexibility. If you think JPEG from you camera is good enough for you, then feel free to use it.

Comment by Albert — April 22, 2009 @ 3:57 pm
Hi Neil,

Thank you for all the great tips; just wonder if you have tried the Expo Disc and any good feed back. I like to get the WB right at first time with the mix lights and I know Raw will take care of the WB. Would you recommend this product or you have other product in mind? Thank you and keep up the GREAT work.

Wayne Lam
Canada

Comment by Wayne Lam — April 22, 2009 @ 7:33 pm
Wayne,

A tool like the Expo Disc would work well here. I also recently bought the ColorRight disc, but haven’t had the opportunity to play with it yet.

So I am sure there are other tools like these as well that will help in these situations .. but no recommendations yet. I still have to explore this.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 22, 2009 @ 9:58 pm
Hi Neil

Great work! I’m particularly impressed by the wonderful color contrast.

I’ve no experiences with Expo Disc, greycards or such. I’ve read about a new tool from datacolor.com – the SpyderCube. It’s designed as a calibration tool for RAW processing. Seems to be the allrounder.

A review can be found here:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/photography/spydercube.html

Thomas
Germany

Comment by Thomas — April 23, 2009 @ 11:35 am
[...] I shot this next shot through some sort of historical artifact. The interesting part is that you can see what shot Neil was getting at this time HERE. [...]

Pingback by Boulder Fashion Photographer Model Shoot At Historic Museum | The Steve Z Photography Blog — April 27, 2009 @ 2:18 am
For those who want to see a few more images from this photo session, my friend Steve Z just posted some on his blog:

Fashion : Priscilla pt1
Fashion : Priscilla pt2

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 27, 2009 @ 2:23 am
Hi Neil,

Probably a stupid question… Why did you decide to shoot the first picture of Priscilla at ISO 1250 and at that ISO setting why isn’t there any noticable noise?

Comment by Barry — May 6, 2009 @ 11:49 am
Hi there Barry … there’s no appreciable noise at that high an ISO, because I used a D3. The current series of cameras like the 5D, 5D mk2, 1D mk3, D700 and D3 all have pretty remarkable high-ISO noise performance.

And from experience I know that the D3 gives clean 1600 ISO images, so I just took it one notch down to 1250 ISO. So in that sense the choice of ISO isn’t a specific one like f2 would be a specific choice. I just wanted to work in a certain range of ISO settings where I wouldn’t have to deal with noise, but I’d still get a near-hand-holdable shutter speed.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — May 6, 2009 @ 12:49 pm