Today was an interesting shooting day. President Bill Clinton came to campus to talk up Hillary for the upcoming primary (Super Tuesday). The event was open to the public, and as a result a line of people stretched from the field house all the way to Elm Street.
Anyway, my return to the field house proved to be more fruitful. On my last shooting opp, men's gymnastics vs. michigan, I ran into a few problems that all photographers face indoors - white balance (WB) imbalance. In indoor situations, there is always artificial light (obviously). There are many different types of artificial light to light rooms, anything from mercury vapor (street lights) to fluorescent tungsten (gym lights).
From what I can see, the field house has four rows of tungsten-halogen lights. These types of lights give off a certain "color temperature" with its discharge. Understanding the color temperature of certain lights will enable you to adjust for it appropriately. If not, you're photos will turn out extremely orange or extremely green or blue. NOT GOOD.
One other fact to consider with fluorescent tungsten is that they have "cycles" where they give off a full charge and go down to less than a full charge. You know when you can hear the low pitch hum from a light? That's the electricity "cycling" through the lamp. You cannot see this with the naked eye, but it shows up quite well on camera. So the cycles of light, as well as the color temperature, are two more variables a photographer has to think about on top of everything else. If I have more time later, I'll show you examples of such phenomena so this will make more sense.
Here are a few photos from the Clinton event.
Photos courtesy OU Student Media
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