Tungsten and fluorescent lighting

I decided to make the most of my time whilst babysitting to study the colour of tungsten lighting. In order for this project to work, it was stated that there should be an equal amount of light coming from inside and out. I stood at the window looking into the garden to get used to the colour of the light in the garden. As I turned round to the kitchen, I noticed that the colour of light in the room from the tungsten bulbs was much more orange than the light outside. I carried on looking inside for a moment to get used to this light and then turned again. As expected, the light outside appeared quite blue.

Sitting my niece on a stool, I set about photographing her using different white balance settings. First, I used the auto setting and composed the shot so that both inside and outside could be seen. I can instantly see that this mixed light has confused my camera. The green hedge and red chair look fairly close to their true colours, although just a touch too blue.  To the right of the shot, an orange colour cast can be seen, most notably in the white toaster which appears to be pale orange. When looking at my niece’s face, I can see a slight blue cast to the left and orange to the right but this evens out in my mind and altogether looks acceptable. The mixed lighting levels have also created problems as the side of Evie’s hair is totally burnt out.

 

 I then set the camera to the daylight setting. In this shot, the outside colours look almost as they should; the hedge looks green and Evie’s right arm and the back of her dress look very close to the right colours. To the right of the shot, the area which is lit by tungsten lights, everything appears slightly orange, which again, can be seen most clearly in the white toaster. The daylight setting seems to have coped with the mixed lighting levels better as Evie’s hair isn’t as burnt out here.

 

Finally I set the camera to the tungsten setting and as expected, as a result of tungsten light being more orange than natural light, the camera setting has added a blue colour cast. The right side of the image facing the tungsten lights is a touch too blue but fairly close to correct colours. To the left, the hedge outside looks very blue, far from its natural colour and a large part of Evie’s face is totally burnt out.

I can see from this experiment that mixed lighting is very difficult to deal with. I know that editing software has made it possible to merge two images to compensate for such problems but because of the fluidity of the colour of light, this would not be a simple task.

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For the second part of this assignment, I have found two different types of fluorescent lighting. The first is of an office, lit by bright fluorescent strip lights. Much of the office is white so it is easy to spot colour casts. I took the photograph with the camera set to automatic white balance and then the fluorescent setting; the result is quite similar for both images; the colour temperature is the same with only the tint being slightly pinker.

In the lighter areas of the image, both shots look almost white; however on looking into the darker white areas such as the pillar, the pink and green tinges are quite clear. A purer white could be achieved by sliding the tint controller to a point half way between these settings.

Another thing I notice when looking at these images is that they have a strange dream like quality to them; the colours are not quite as saturated as I remember them to be. I am unsure whether this is down to me shooting the image through a window or because the fact that fluorescent lighting does not emit a full spectrum of colours. I will explore this anomaly further as I move onto study night lighting in my next project.

My next image was taken in a coffee bar under what I assume to be the CFL type lamps described in the brief for this project. These types of bulb look like tungsten lamps but it is clear from my results that they are actually fluorescent.

In this pair of images, the image taken on auto is greener than that on the fluorescent setting, the opposite of the previous experiment. In the left hand image, the colours appear washed out and the image rather dull. The image using the fluorescent setting, although slightly too pink, is closer to the actual colours seen on the day and much more vibrant.

The fluorescent setting has had quite different results on the two images because there are different types of fluorescent lighting. As my camera only has one fluorescent setting for white balance, I will always have to be careful when shooting in indoor public areas. For most sitautions, white balance will have to be corrected where possible when editing.