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Studio lighting issue.
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Hi I have recently purchased some Elinchrom studio lights and have one issue that is giving me concern . The hair colour on my subject looks redish instead of brown. I am using 4 lights 2 either side of subject and one each to light the hair and background. I am shooting at ISO 100 shutter 125 at F8. the room I am using is small with an 8ft celing and about 11 ft wide. I’m wondering is this something simple that I am doing wrong, I would appreciate any coments on the above.
could be a couple of things, please don’t take this as me idiot checking you but try to make sure you have set white balance on digital (assuming your shooting digital) camera to suit the lights or if shooting film read the film info sheets to find a film to suit. make sure you are not bouncing the lights off a wall or ceiling that could give a colour caste to your image as light bounced will take on a caste of the colour of the object it’s bounced from. make sure lights are balanced correctly, both colour corrected (using the same temperature bulb in each unit) and also not too close too subject as this could also change colours. hope this helps, if not give me some more info re your set up and I’ll come up with more options.
Thanks for reply Dermot.
please do assume that I have little experience..
I have the white balance set to Flash on my camera which is a Nikon D80. I will have to look at how close I have the lights set up at the weekend as this is the only time I get to practice. As I am using my living room I have a red/Brown curtain pulled accross the window that is to the side of me but behind where the camera and lights are set up could this be casting a bad colour..I was just going to ask what colour the walls are! :)
That red/Brown curtain certainly sounds like it might be the culprit. Cover it with something like a white sheet just to see if it makes a difference.I’d agree that the curtain could be the culprit even if not a direct bouncing source, light travels so fast that you could be getting indirect bounce/caste. try using a white sheet as suggested above. you said you have white balance set to flash but just check the bulbs and see what colour temp they are as white balance to flash might be warming up the light a bit to much and you might need to use a different white balance, just wondering are the lights your using strobes or constant or do they have the ability to switch between the two it might be worth having a play with the 2 settings if the option is there. a colleague has a d80 so I’ll bend his ear tomorrow and see if he has any suggestions for settings on the camera that could be tweaked.
Thanks for both replies above…
I will try the white sheet over the curtain at the weekend and get back to you.. just for your interest the celing is white and the walls are magnolia. I am using Elinchrom D-lite strobes.. I will check the bulbs also. again thanks and any other suggestions welcome ..Hi
I have tried the shots again with a sheet covering the curtains and the hair colour on my subject is again a redish colour.I have a[attachment=0:7j0v9on8]1004_0036a.jpg[/attachment:7j0v9on8] attached a photo to look at and hopefully someone might have another suggestion and again thanks for the previous suggestions they are welcome.Hi Macken.
I’m not an expert on lighting, but I would think that there is a slight difference in the colour temperature of your lights & flash. Did you try a custom white balance on your camera, shooting a pure white object under the lighting conditions that you are using? I found this worked for me a while back when I was getting a slight caste in my shots. If you are using film, there might also be a slight difference in the colour temperature. Also, are your bulbs new as the temperature can change with age too. Hope these suggestions can help.p.s. Nice shot
Really nice shot, here’s a suggestion that might help, asked my friend about the colour and saturation settings he uses and his advice to me is that the d80 tends to warm things up when shooting with default colour settings so he changed his under Optimize Image, in Custom > + Saturation and Color Mode IIIa to make the colours a bit more “realistic”, this might be something to try, also try dialing in exposure compensation and use a custom or manual white balance as opposed to setting it to flash.
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