Low Light Question.

[Pehpsi]

Hey-hey.

Just curious as to why some shots turn out like this under certain lighting:



It looks like he's been hit with a can of spray paint..

[Miliux]

I'm guessing it's UV lighting?

[Biggzie]

Are you using Auto White Balance?
Because it looks like your camera might have picked the wrong one, or as I did the other day, the setting I used reacted completely different to the light as I suspected. Some of the coloured lights maybe giving the same sort of errors.

[gstark]

No, this is not "low light" but "bad light"

What settings were in use when you made this image please?

[Pehpsi]

Hey guys:

D70, Manual, RAW, f2.8, 1/80, ISO 800, Auto WB, 125mm, VR.

Lighting was crud, as usual. There was good light for a second every once in a while which is when I tried to shoot.

[Mr Darcy]

Looks like the lighting style changed as you pressed the shutter.
As I understand it, the D70 (and for that matter, most DSLRs) read the exposure, including WB while the mirror is still down. There is a small but real delay between that reading and the actual exposure.
This is generally fine, but in rapidly changing lighting conditions, it can lead to significant errors.
As you shot RAW, you may be able to recover using an OOC adjustment

[Biggzie]

As the lighting is constantly changing, I'd turn off AWB and manually set it (after experimenting) to a setting like Shady or Cloudy daylight (dont know what it is in Nikon) and do the whole shoot at that setting so all the effects lighting are taken with the same camera balance corections.
Will take a few shots to see which setting looks realistic, but at least all the lights should be consistant.

[gstark]

As the lighting is constantly changing, I'd turn off AWB

I'd actually offer similar advice, but unqualified. I have rarely seen a case for using AWB, and in any sort of difficult situation, manual WB - and a constant exposure setting too, probably - is usually the way to go.

As Greg points out, the lighting is constantly changing, and while under those sorts of circumstances it might seem as if AWB is the correct approach, the problem is that for every different lighting setup you'll get a different wb setting, and your images (and the resulting pp task) will end up like a lottery.

And just like a lottery, you're not going to come out the winner.

When you set a manual WB, you'll give yourself - and your images - a common base from which they can be viewed.

And PP'd.

[Pehpsi]

Thanks for the advice, all. I shall do some experimenting in the near future...