• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

flourescent lighting

I plan to shoot (with DV) in a retail location which has many flourescent daylight bulbs lighting the store. Will these lights work well?

I've seen a lot of talk about flourescent bulbs but usually about cool white bulbs which are kind of yellow. Daylight bulbs are more of a white.
 
The best thing is to get a minus green filter. It will filter out the wavelengths that give everything that green pallor, and then white balance on white. You can pick up a Tiffen for about $20 on ebay. Look for an FL-D or FL-B filter depending on what setting you use. FL-D is probably the best choice for video.
 
You're going to need a few extra kinos on c-stands for fill since you can't angle or position the practicals. Make sure they're daylight ;)
 
I've just done two shoots under exactly these circumstances. One in a supermarket in Mexico City and one in Orlando.

I'd do a test shoot under the lighting circumstances the day before just to see how your camera deals with the colour temperature. Some are more forgiving than others.

The biggest headache is going to be if either you've got mixed lighting sources: tungsten, flour, daylight and halogens all in the same environment. No amount of colour correction is going to help you there. if that's the case try to negotiate with the store to turn our everything but the primary lighting (normally the flours). If you have complete control of the store and they don't mind you bringing in your own lighting, do it. The kinos would be great for that. (Howver, you won't get that washed out store lighting look with that)

If you put daylight balanced kinos into an enviroment that is already lit with various tungsten sources you will create more problems that you'll solve. Most retail environments want minimal instrusion with equipment and personnel, so I'd white balance with the light you've got and try to keep all the action under one kind of light source.

One other thing, that I've only ever come across on the Mexico shoot, check with the store management that they don't have an automated lighting system that switches the lights on and off at regulate intervals. You bee amazed at just how annoying finding that our can be half way through a shoot.

Oh, and don't forget that in most circumstances a reflector is your best friend for regulating light.

Good luck with the project
 
Good point, in a space where all the light is coming from the top like with fluorescents, it can cause some serious raccoon eyes unless you have something to fill. A reflector works well when you can get it close enough.
 
You don't *need* a minus green filter as this problem is easily remedied in post. It just depends on where you want to spend your time and money really..
 
I don't know if it's the same as on film, but I think it is. In colour photography, flourescent light gives a green tinge, studio lights give a blue tinge, and daylight gives a yellow tinge. (I think that's right, I havn't taken colour theory yet) Anyways I know the green bit is true.
 
daylight - blue
incandescent - orangeish
florescent - greenish

come cameras white balance to fluorescents better than others. The only way to be absolutely sure you know what to expect is to screen test it. As they mentioned above what is hardest to deal with is mixed light.
 
Clive did you use a minus green filter like film8ker
suggested.

No, but I white balanced and then ran a short test under the lights. The camera I was using handled the flours without needing fliters.

The images didn't need any colour correction in post.
 
Back
Top