What's Going On Here???
Here are a couple of sequences that illustrate the weirdness of the lighting I'm dealing with shooting night games. ISO 6400, 1/320 f2.8 in all shots. Auto WB. I had shot a Lastolite calibration target for reference, but those shots turned out useless for the reasons these game sequences will illustrate. These are both three-shot bursts of less than one second each. Auto WB chose 4050, +31 for the first set:
Same exposure settings for this sequence, but Auto WB chose 4100, +33 (a negligible difference):
As you can see, white balance is all over the place. I can only conclude that the stadium lighting fluctuates like fluorescent indoor lighting. What a mess! Is there a way to deal with this other than using flash, which I'm loath to do?
Same exposure settings for this sequence, but Auto WB chose 4100, +33 (a negligible difference):
As you can see, white balance is all over the place. I can only conclude that the stadium lighting fluctuates like fluorescent indoor lighting. What a mess! Is there a way to deal with this other than using flash, which I'm loath to do?
John :
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
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Seriously though, my guess is that your camera's meter is hitting the gray goalpost in one shot and some other part of the frame in the other.
Just out of curiousity, can't you just batch process the WB in Lightroom and manually set it? This way you'd just need to calibrate 1 and "assign" the rest?
Bottom line is either shoot at 1/60s to capture a full cycle of the lights, or live with it. Well, I guess you could buy some better lights for the stadium. :giggle
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Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
Gotcha - That's a tough one. Was just trying to kick out some ideas.
Any thought to flipping to black and white?
That is one very useful thing to know. I knew it was an issue indoors, but had no idea the problem existed outdoors. I've only shot three games under lights (in three different stadiums) and the first didn't present the problem (and the lights were twice as bright too.)
It may be that the lighting engineers set the phasing opposite on half the lights in the first stadium. That might have eliminated the problem by blending the pulses.
Oh, believe me, with real estate taxes as high as they are in Fairfax County, I FEEL like I've already personally bought the damn stadium lights.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
Yup. Could do that.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
I shoot a lot of live stuff and sometimes, I just say screw it... It's not always the best answer, but i like having the "I meant to do that..." angle when people question me...
Have a good one.
Hey, check this out. This is a GIF composed from 12 images shot at 1/2000. It really shows the pulsing of the discharge lights.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
That's not all. I've shot where the bulbs were warm & cool (probably partial replacements). One section of track was pink (must have been the sale bulbs)
B&W, Dude. Even in the pouring rain.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
* why on Earth do you shoot on Auto WB?
* in general why do you shout on auto *anything*, since lighting during the night games does not change?
* if you have a compelling reason to shout auto, why don't you shoot RAW and iron out WB in post (ACR/LR make it a no-brainer)?
And , of course, I couldn't pass up this oppornutiny: maybe it's an N-thing?
Not all stadium lights use this technology Nik. Maybe you were lucky. I'm one-for-three so far. Believe me on this . . . when you finally DO run into it, you'll be cussing and spitting 'till you remember, "Oh, yeah. B&W!" Or maybe you can shoot marching band at 1/60 with VR on
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
Ah, OK, that makes sense. Yes, my exposures were on a slower side, since bands don't move too fast (although those pretty color guards sometimes do:-).
Interesting. Good to know!
Absolutely wrong on cycling lights. A portion of an array of lights are always recycling, changing tonality. Auto WB is probably as good as any other solution , I would guess.
B&W tho' seems to be a solution for most keepers
AWB is the way to go with Cycling lights or should I say Indoor or Outdoor artificial light., if you check the Sportsshooter board post you will realize that sometimes the tone and tint changes as well as the K of the light. Take what you have and fix it the best you can your post processing. 99% of what I shoot is at night under artificial lighting indoors and out, just like buying a light bulb at the store sometimes they just put in what is cheaper and that really affects the WB.
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