What settings to use when shooting in yellow light?

Under daylight/flash whitebalance settings; Tungsten will appear Orange, Incandescent light will appear Yellow, Flourescent will appear Green


The reason you ask this question is most probably because when you take your photos, sometimes it appear yellow, sometimes pale, sometimes green. sometimes blue. so you are wondering how come like that, right?

The reason you got different colour when shoot indoor is u use A or P or Av modes indoors. When you use any of the auto modes. you are unable to control the light 'mix' in your shots. The correct term for this is called 'ratio'. meaning in your shot , do you want 50% room lighting + 50% flash? or do you want 60% flash + 30% sunlight + 10% room light? or do you want 100% flash light + 0% room light?


If you have a camera settings that utilizes 100% flashlight, then use Auto/daylight/flash WB setting. your photo should be coloured correctly

the way to ensure you utilizes 100% flashlight is
1) take ambient exposure reading. to do this. point the camera in the room, set to av mode, set to lowest aperture for eg F2.8, Iso 400, and read the shutter speed recommended by your camera. let's say it's 1/25

then set your camera 3 -4 stops ABOVE the ambient setting. in this case 1/25 to 1/50 is 1stop, 1/25 to 1/100 is 2stop, 1/25 to 1/200 is 3stop. F2.8 to F5.6 is 1 stop. so set your camera to manual mode, F5.6, iso400 , 1/200. you would be exactly 4 stops above ambient light

then take a picture in the room without flash. it should be very dark ( not pitch black)

2) turn on your speed light , set it on ETTL mode.

3) set your WB to Auto.

then all your photos should have the correct colour.


NOTE: if you want very precise colour, you set 5 or 6 stops above ambient. if you take photo without flash, it will be pitch black, totally black. The problem with this is your TTL flash might fire at very high or full power. that means your recycle time will be slow. In studio settings, ppl use 100% strobes or flash. Colour contamination is alot of headache. Ever wonder why ppl turn off the lights when in studio?

NOTE: if the left side of the face is lit by tungsten, right side of face is lit by flashlight. even if you shoot raw, it is impossible to get the correct colour in photoshop. If you want to play with ratio of light with different colour temparature you need to use colour temparature gel.