[reivax]

Just got back a little while ago from taking photographs for a friend's baby shower. Not sure if anyone has ever encountered an event like this, but I'm curious how others would handle this situation.

The place was not huge (25 ft x 25 ft), but has to have one of the weirdest set ups I have ever seen. For starters, the room had different ceiling heights. In some parts of the room, the ceiling was about 8 ft high, in others about 10 ft. There was no consistency. You walk 5 ft, and the ceiling was 8 ft high, you walk another 5 ft, now it's 10 ft, another 5 ft, back to 8 ft. This only bothered me because I constantly had to be adjusting how my flash bounced around the room. One shot, there was too much light on the subject, I would turn around, and now the subject didn't have enough light. I constantly had to be adjusting (Big plus though, I feel a lot more competent with my flash after this.)

Then there was the lighting. Ohhh, the lighting. It had cheap fluorescent lights, and in a very odd pattern, also had Christmas lights decorated in certain parts of the room (probably due to the fact that it's around Christmas). To make matters worse, it also had a flood light with a sensor so it would turn on and off without notice. This wreaked havoc with my camera's auto white balance. Some shots were too cold, others were too warm. I decided to leave the white balance on auto, because I have no idea how I would have been able to switch back and forth quickly and effectively.

Has anyone else ever experienced a situation like this? How did you handle it?

Now I know why a lot of people don't like shooting indoors. Wow! I feel like I've grown ten years just in one night. It was something else. I have to admit, as frustrating as it was during, I'm really happy I agreed to do it. A lot of learning was done tonight.

*In case anyone is wondering why this place was chosen for the event, the baby shower was originally scheduled to be outdoors but was rained out and this was the only place available to rent on short notice.

[demp10]

Other than using a strong flash to overpower that ambient light, your other choice is to adjust the white balance in post processing. I assume that you were shooting in RAW format, if not you will be disappointed.

First try to use Auto WB in the Raw converter and see what you get. If it is not correct then look for something white in the frame and sample it. If that's still no good, then manually adjust the color temperature and tint until you get natural skin color.

[kottier]

My advice would be: Disable the sensor (block its view) and use a gel to make your flash match the fluorescent lights.

[mysticcowboy]

Multiple light sources are nasty. You may not be able to balance the entire image. I'd just try to get my skin tones as good as possible. This situation provides a good example of the value of flashes, even if there's enough light to shoot without them. Flashes let you control the light.

If you shot jpegs or if you can't get the photos color balanced well enough there's always split toning or B&W conversion.