Tungsten + Fluorescent lighting issues

[alostfraggle]

I know the difference between the two but one day I was asked to do a product shoot within a shop. When I arrived I noticed the lighting and thought that it was just Tungsten lighting. Afterward I get back to my computer to find that compensating for the Tungsten resulted in a shift in a whole other direction.

I decided to go back to the shop and investigate. It turns out that there is Tungsten light shining down from a rig on the ceiling and shining up from the rig you can't even see are Fluorescent lights shining up to the ceiling. The lights shining up may be LED lights bouncing off the ceiling. Either way it made for an interesting problem. When compensating for the green on the right the left side will turn blue. So far the only work around I could find was asking to move the objects to another location or trying to find a way to turn off some of the light and so far they don't want to do either. Has anyone else had this issue before..?


IMG_0537_1 by alostfraggle, on Flickr

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[tirediron]

Yes I have; it's a very common lighting arrangement, especially for smaller retail stores. The work arounds are: (1) Turn the lights off and use your own, (2) Move the product to a location with controlled lighting, or (3) Just overpower the ambient. If the product is small and easily moved, I'd go with 2, if it's larger than try #1.

[alostfraggle]

Thank you! I have recommended that we rent some lights to do another shoot. I think just overpowering the light should be rather easy because the lighting is very soft.