[chacoansun]

Recently I was at an outdoor festival and when I was trying to take photos of the evening acts all turned out yellow. Is there filters you can get or any other way to get a true light on the performers. I do not want to use a flash. I know the photos are a little blurry, but I can work on that with shutter speed, etc. I am definitly more interested in the light aspect. Any help would great. Thanks

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Last edited by chacoansun; 04-11-2013 at 07:54 AM.

[Doanh]

You can use the Tungsten WB or Custom WB if you shoot JPG, or post process if you shoot RAW.

[Just1MoreDave]

It's a white balance problem. Your eyes are easily fooled into thinking that any lighting is just fine when you're in it. The camera accurately records the scene, but later, you see those photos and your eyes are not fooled, because the viewing conditions are different. The white balance setting is to adjust the camera to match the light source. Concert lighting can be difficult because the lighting may be designed for effect instead of accuracy, and may change often. You also can't hop up on the stage with a card to set a custom WB. In tough conditions, you'll have to compromise on something.

In this case, the lighting looks like tungsten or close to it, so as Doanh suggested, you could use the tungsten preset, or try to set a custom WB. The custom setting might fail or take many tries because the light levels are low and you may not have a large enough target. Newer cameras allow you to adjust the WB settings by hand. The K-7 allows me to enter my own color temperature. Shooting in RAW allows you to change the WB later, but it's useful to get something close to correct when you're shooting. That makes the previews more accurate. Shooting in JPG means the camera applies a WB setting to each photo, limiting your ability to change it later. I tried to adjust your photo but in addition to WB problems, the performers are overexposed, which is more obvious when the colors are changed.



Image processing software usually has tools to help you with these adjustments, sometimes with amazing results.

[Just1MoreDave]

The second photo comes out a little better:



What I did for both photos was open them in Adobe Camera RAW so I could use the white balance sliders I was used to. The same adjustments should be possible with other software packages. I tried the Pentax DCU4 but could not get the white balance tool to do anything.

[chacoansun]

thanks for the info. I don't believe the K10 has a tungsten wb (it might though) but it does have the custom wb. Really most shows I would be shooting would be outside without too much dynamic lights. Hard part with the custom is where to start and go from there without shooting dozens of images and missing the show.

[Just1MoreDave]

The K10D has all kinds of WB settings! I guess I should not think of it as a creaky old camera. Page 123 of the manual starts it with presets including tungsten, but you can make manual adjustments with the 4 way controller, or enter a color temperature directly.

[chacoansun]

Thanks Dave! I will definitely take a look at the manual tonight and see what I can find.

[newmikey]

Have a look at the rest of your settings as well:

Software : K10D Ver 1.00
-You should update your firmware as 1.31 is the latest on the K10D

White Balance : Manual
-again, set you WB to tungsten and shoot raw

Metering Mode : Multi-segment
-Metering mode should either be spot metering on the singer's faces or center-weighed with maybe a -0.5 correction dialed.

Exposure Time : 1/6 s
-this is just way to slow to make any kind of sharp image at all unless the subject is a rock and you are very lucky Try to keep 1/30 as your no-holds-barred lower limit.