Taking pictures under fluorescent tubes. Advice please?

stezzz · Dec 2, 2012

Hi, I'm totally new to the forum so I'll just introduce myself here, I hope it's ok.... my name is Stefano and I live in Norway.... I have always been a canon shooter, from my AT 1 to my eos 20 d....since I buy a camera body every 10/15 years it's almost time for me to go 5d markIII ... I have been an amateur photographer for 25 years now and I am sometimes able to snap some cool shots. I guess this is the reason why I became the official photographer of the place where I work (it's product pictures most of the time for catalogues, commercials, brochures etc.) so every now and then I get to switch from my everyday job to my passion..... I'm looking forward to improve myself all the time and I finally joined my first forum today... better late than never!!

I'll be shooting an assembly line for a "how we build your stuff" type of brochure.... I will be using a canon 20d with a ts 90mm lens plus some wide angle shots where needed.

Problem 1 : the light is horrible ( hundreds of fluorescent tubes hanging from the roof everywhere). Are there any tricks to get around the horrible effect that fluorescent light have on what I shoot apart from using photoshop?. Is it just me who hates fluorescent tubes or is it a real problem?

problem 2: I´ll be shooting some carbon fiber parts covered in an extremely shiny transparent finish. Whatever softbox, double curtain in front of my reflectors etc. I have used in the past they always reflect a lot of light and have areas that are burned and overexposed..... I never used a polarized filter in my whole life... would that be a solution or?

Thanks!

Patrice · Dec 2, 2012

Fluorescent lights can be a problem. Your best bet would be the custom wb controls of your camera. The default fluorescent wb might not be the right one for the lights you are having to deal with. These lights also tend to 'flicker' so don't try high shutter speeds.

As for photographing smooth shinny things, good luck with reducing the reflections. Best bet, if you can manage it, is large flat lighting. Big softboxes or large diffusion panels would help.

480sparky · Dec 2, 2012

There's a gozilion different color temps when it comes to fluorescents. Shoot with a custom WB . And shoot raw if at all possible so you have total and complete ability to change it in post.

Helen B · Dec 2, 2012

If shooting raw and doing a one-click white balance doesn't produce acceptable results with your factory florescents then you could try using a camera profile such as those produced by the Xrite Passport or Datacolor SpyderChekr (the latter seems better, from my initial experience with it).

There are two ways that I generally deal with shiny surfaces that I don't want to shine: polarizing filters; and black flags, fingers and dots. Polarizing filters only work well at certain angles - around 45° - so you have to arrange the lights accordingly. Polarizing filters are useful if you have co-planar surfaces that you want the metal to shine and the non-metal to not shine.

The other, usually more precise and refined way is to reflect a dark object of just the right shape - a black flag, finger or dot (name depends on shape and size) - while allowing the surface to be lit from other, non-reflecting angles. You can make your own from black card, black cloth or black aluminium foil ("Cinefoil" if you want to buy it). Go to the Matthews website for inspiration (flags are here, some fingers and dots are here). Here's Cinefoil. I shoot a lot of products and cutting light from exactly where I don't want it is usually important to me. I have lots of flags, black scrims, dots and fingers, and a variety of suitably sized grip equipment to hold it all in just the right place (normal grip stuff, MiniGrip and MicroGrip, which is compatible with 10 mm diam. laboratory clamp arms). If you or your company has a budget for this, ask Matthews for a catalog and go shopping. Otherwise just go DIY.

stezzz · Dec 2, 2012

Hi there... thanks for replying.... sorry I didn't specify it before... I always do a custom white balance before shooting and I do use RAW..... the colours and the "feel" of the picture still sucks badly though, if you understand what I'm getting at........ hence I was wandering if there is an old school trick or something that may help... postproduction I know, it's just that I'm happier when I walk away from a photoshoot and the pics look good BEFORE retouching them.... no chance in hell with the fluorescent?
Thanks!

I read the comment above just after I sent the msg..... well thanks Helen!! I'm going to do a little bit more research on the camera profiles you mentioned.... thanks for the lighting tips too, I have already used fingers in the past but I have never really stepped up from that level.... Thanks again, let's get down to testing now!

Helen B · Dec 2, 2012

Thing is that you are dealing with an emission spectrum with some degree of spikiness (how spiky depends on the florescent lamps in use), not a nice smooth curve. The sort of blanket adjustments that a physical filter or one-click white balance provide don't work perfectly in that case. The nearest you may be able to get is by using a camera profile, which is a sort of look-up table that has corrections for many colours, the more the better. You shoot a multi-colour target in the problem light, and the software creates a detailed adjustment table. It will never be perfect, but it should be better than a one-click balance.

As well as the ones I have already mentioned, if you are using Windows there is the free CoCa profiling software which can be used with a variety of colour targets.