I Hate Sodium Lamps (Indoor Sports)

[linque]

I was shooting my daughter's volleyball game at the YMCA yesterday, and was getting really aggravated by the sodium lamps they use. These two pictures illustrate it best. They were shot within 1-second of each other.

Canon 40D
White Balance: Manual - Fluorescent
ISO: 1600
Lens: 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 1/500 @ f1.8
(These are straight out of the camera, so no comments on how horrible they are please.)





In some of my pics, half of the frame is a different color. I tried bumping my exposure to 1/800 of a second, but it was too dark, and it didn't help.

Anyway, I just had to bitch about it to someone who would understand. Thanks for listening. :)

[John Godwin]

Those cycling lights are the main reason I use strobes!!!

[iCe]

Tweak the WB in ACR and they should "somewhat" balance. If you don't use strobes the only thing you can do is set the WB manually (which you did) and adjust as need in ACR.

[Ricco]

I feel your pain. When I'm doing random shots, one of the habits I needed to get into was checking my WB and its on "cloudy" when I walk out the door. But when it gets late, I have to constantly juggle the settings. It gets more frustrating when there are multiple types of lights within a short distance of each other.

[khatley]

Originally Posted by iCe

Tweak the WB in ACR and they should "somewhat" balance. If you don't use strobes the only thing you can do is set the WB manually (which you did) and adjust as need in ACR.

Or shoot at 1/60 of a second or slower! One trick I do I is shoot a white card at 1/15 of a second for your custom white balance, that will give you a median white balance of all the colors. Those lights cycle and discharge every 1/60 of a second..

[iCe]

Originally Posted by khatley

Or shoot at 1/60 of a second or slower! One trick I do I is shoot a white card at 1/15 of a second for your custom white balance, that will give you a median white balance of all the colors. Those lights cycle and discharge every 1/60 of a second..

That won't work for sports. But I stored it away for future reference

[khatley]

Originally Posted by iCe

That won't work for sports. But I stored it away for future reference

The white card custom wb prior to shooting sports can help quite a bit. I do it off the ice before shooting hockey every time I shoot.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by khatley

The white card custom wb prior to shooting sports can help quite a bit. I do it off the ice before shooting hockey every time I shoot.

I should have been more "surgical" in my response. I agree with using a WB card. The slow shutter speed, as I'm sure you know, isn't a good plan for sports

[LSCSN.com]

It would work okay for most of the static shots like in the original post. But not for much action certainly.