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 p.1 #8 · Tungsten Advice needed | |
The problem with tungsten vs daylight and flash is that the camera captures images with red, green, and blue filters over sensor sites. Tungsten light is rich in red and green (red+green = yellow) but almost devoid of blue. So to get proper WB, regardless of how it is set, the camera must amplify the signal of the blue sensor sites much more than the red and green ones. In the process of amplifying the signal the base noise level is also amplified. That's why tungsten-lit images are tend to have more noise, especially in the shadows where there is less signal, especially at higher ISOs which also boosts the amplification.
Shooting in RAW provides a bit more dynamic range and the ability to change the WB after shooting without degrading image quality. Usually the correction needed is to make the color balance more blue, which will exacerbate the blue channel noise problem more in a JPG than in RAW. You should learn to use RAW. If you have a new computer and Photoshop there is really no workflow penalty for using RAW. Files are opened in Adobe Camera Raw first which allows adjustment of WB and exposure before opening in Photoshop for other editing.
Given the choice I would use indirect (northern) window light or shoot outdoors rather than tungsten. The ISO needed would be about the same (400 should work) and the color balance would be better in all channels resulting in far less noise. The character of the lighting would also be a huge improvement.
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