BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Answers

Don't Drink from THAT water fountain!!!

	Water Fountain Photo taken on automatic, indoors. Juliette` Colpa-Thomas

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April 06, 2005

Flourescent lighting comes in different flavors. For example, there are daylight flourescents, white, warm white, warm white deluxe, cool white, cool white deluxe and a number of unknowns. While the FLD corrects for some tubes back to daylight, depending on the type of flourescent tubes it may not completely correct it as you discovered. Either an FLD or FLB helps a lot, but to make precise corrections, you may need a set of color correction filters with colors like cyan, magenta, red, blue in different densities.

To know exactly what color correction to use, you either need a color temperature meter (pretty pricey), or need to see the labeling on the light tubes, OR after awhile you can just look at them and determine what they are and know what types of filter(s) to use with what film. Look at the light cast on a white wall or card. Does the cast appear green, pink, white?

Sometimes Juliette, you may need to stack two filters together to make a complete correction, like for warm white, a 30B and #30Cyan. The filtration also depends on the film you're using. Fuji tungsten transparency film is a lot more forgiving with many flourescents than the daylight balanced slide films. With color negative film, a good printer can subtract out most or all of the color cast and balance for daylight. For that I like Agfa Optima. Also, with your shot at the fountain, using a touch of fill flash should eliminate the problem because you're essentially washing the scene with daylight to obviate the effects of the overhead lighting.

Next, if you want, we can discuss correcting for high intensity discharge lamps (HIDs) including mercury and sodium vapor. [Ohhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooo, not the HID lighting correction problem!!!] LOL !!(I really hate that).

Take it light.
Mark

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April 06, 2005