Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

FM Forum Rules
Wedding Resource List
  

FM Forums | Wedding Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

  

Archive 2015 · Church Light

  
 
skasol
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Church Light


How do you deal with the horrible church light?
I just shot a wedding and the lighting conditions were horrible. Too dark and yellow light. I shot raw and I am trying to adjust the light but not getting good results.



Aug 19, 2015 at 07:37 PM
sherijohnson
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Church Light


shoot higher ISO, when the results have weird color balance, I desaturate a bit.


Aug 19, 2015 at 07:44 PM
skasol
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Church Light


Thank you. I shot with a higher iso as well as fast lens, I guess I am just not happy with the 5 different types of lights that were coming in. the results look better in B&W.


Aug 19, 2015 at 07:46 PM
IrishDino
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Church Light


Examples would help.

I shoot in some of the worst lighting conditions ever....especially during the getting ready. Mixed lights and lightbulbs, window light, funky colored walls, etc. Editing for WB is almost always a nightmare. The biggest things are to either convert to B&W or pull back on the contrast and vibrance sliders to flatten out the image.



Aug 19, 2015 at 07:47 PM
Dawei Ye
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Church Light


For Churches I highly recommend getting the lights turned off. That might let the natural lighting shine through the windows and give a cleaner light

If they don't let you turn the lights off, or if it makes everything horribly dark, consider bounce flash as an alternative - even bouncing off walls and whatnot and colour correcting later

By the way check out how clean this Church's light was - my favourite ever

http://galleries.clartephoto.com/p218261807

This is a church in Melbourne, Australia - I now recommend it to all my Wedding clients

^Oh and that in itself is a technique to address this - recommend better lit churches to clients



Aug 20, 2015 at 02:56 AM
sherijohnson
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Church Light


flash is not always an option for church weddings


Aug 20, 2015 at 07:54 AM
ahaug
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Church Light


I shot for years in a church with yellow / green stained glass windows and incandesent bulbs. Each day was different depending on the power of the light coming through the windows. Also, the lighting changed by where you were standing in the church. In the end, I would take pictures of my color checker passport before the ceremony and after. I would take tests in each direction that the light was coming in. That would get me pretty close. If you could go back to the church and get similar lighting ... do some custom white balance shots ... might help. Sometimes the dress / tux is neutral enough to get you close as well.


Aug 20, 2015 at 08:18 AM
leethecam
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Church Light


skasol wrote:
How do you deal with the horrible church light?
I just shot a wedding and the lighting conditions were horrible. Too dark and yellow light. I shot raw and I am trying to adjust the light but not getting good results.


I've also suffered that "yellow" light issue and I think it's much to do with how the stone walls reflect light rather than the colour temperature of the ambient.

If you are using LR, try going into the colour palette and pulling down just the yellow slider. Not too much or you can kill the skin tones.

I find this can clean up an image very quickly.



Aug 20, 2015 at 09:01 AM
skasol
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Church Light




ahaug wrote:
I shot for years in a church with yellow / green stained glass windows and incandesent bulbs. Each day was different depending on the power of the light coming through the windows. Also, the lighting changed by where you were standing in the church. In the end, I would take pictures of my color checker passport before the ceremony and after. I would take tests in each direction that the light was coming in. That would get me pretty close. If you could go back to the church and get similar lighting ... do some custom white balance shots ...
...Show more

I used the tux as it was a neutral shade of gray to do color balance.



Aug 20, 2015 at 09:13 AM
skasol
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Church Light




leethecam wrote:
I've also suffered that "yellow" light issue and I think it's much to do with how the stone walls reflect light rather than the colour temperature of the ambient.

If you are using LR, try going into the colour palette and pulling down just the yellow slider. Not too much or you can kill the skin tones.

I find this can clean up an image very quickly.


I will try this today later when I go back to editing



Aug 20, 2015 at 09:13 AM
samwillow
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Church Light


have the same problemm... thaks God i found this thread


Aug 21, 2015 at 09:50 AM
skasol
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Church Light


Thank you all for your suggestion. De saturating and lowering the yellow color was just right. Thank you.


Aug 21, 2015 at 09:52 AM
elkhornsun
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Church Light


I have only once not been able to use flash during the processional and recessional parts of a wedding. When using the ambient light I rely on shooting RAW and fortunately the auto white balance with the Nikon cameras is exceptionally good so usually only a minor adjustment is needed in post processing and I can do this in batches.

Reds are another story and luckily it is seldom a chosen color for the bridesmaids dresses. When it is then I will have more time spent/wasted in post processing to get it to look right. With the salons providing multiple styles for the bridesmaids that are supposed to be the same exact color I have found this had not actually been the case with shifts in color from one dress to the next.

Avoid underexposing at all costs. I can get a better print from a +1 EV exposure than I can a -1 EV exposure in terms of color fidelity. The underexposed image is missing important color information so there is nothing to be recovered or adjusted in post processing.



Aug 24, 2015 at 12:46 PM
hardlyboring
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Church Light


Nothing you can really do besides do a custom WB and then adjust HSL sliders in LR.
Churches are horrible. Light is terrible and non existent, cannot get close enough, people always look pissed off/scared... blah.
So glad people get married outside in CO and actually smile during the wedding.



Aug 24, 2015 at 05:23 PM
mikethevilla
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Church Light


I agree with Zach. If you post some examples we can give more specific feedback.

It sounds like you're still learning your camera's boundaries and how to push them - something that most churches do.



Aug 24, 2015 at 06:31 PM





FM Forums | Wedding Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.