shooting under uncorrected fluorescent light

[francisco soriano]

Can anyone suggest a film stock that can handle shooting under uncorrected fluorescent lights.. Im shooting in NYC in a subway station and in a small store.. I cannot swap out the tubes in either of these locations.. The store Im shooting in has quite an excessive amount of fluorescent lights on the ceiling.. completely covered in tubes..

If anyone has any experience shooting in these conditions, please share. Any stills of something shot in similar conditions would also be very helpful as I am unable to do any tests.

 

Im shooting with an Aaton 35 and zeiss superspeeds.

[Brian Drysdale]

I use magenta colour correction filters on the camera under fluorescent lighting to remove the green and grade rest in post. However, you'd need to use a colour temperature meter to find out the actual CC filter required to remove the green.

 

I used the Tiffen fluorescent filter for some sneaky stuff the NY subway and it wasn't too bad.

 

Daylight film stocks are supposed to be better in handling fluorescent, but i can't say I'm that impressed.

[Dan Goulder]

I've had surprisingly good results shooting under standard flourescents using a combination of Kodak 5205 (250D), along with a Hoya FLD filter. I've even done a two shot with one actress standing under a warm white, while another actress was standing under a cool white, yet the results look properly balanced, which is not what I would have expected. (Maybe I've just been blessed with a good telecine colorist, which doesn't hurt.)

[John Pytlak RIP]

Again, suggested correction filters for fluorescent lighting are usually included in the technical data published for each film:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...4.4.4&lc=en

[Jon Kukla]

In theory you should be able to get away with avoiding the filters entirely by just shooting your grayscale in the same light. That may in fact be essential if the available light is already close to hitting a wide open aperture for your lens.

[John Pytlak RIP]

In theory you should be able to get away with avoiding the filters entirely by just shooting your grayscale in the same light. That may in fact be essential if the available light is already close to hitting a wide open aperture for your lens.

 

If you decide not to use correction filters, err on the side of overexposure. But for natural color, always best to try to correct with the filter recommendations in the film's published technical information.

 

Many stores and public places lit by fluorescents have a relatively high light level:

 

http://www.lightsearch.com/resources/lightguides/index.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighting

 

http://w3.ouhsc.edu/ehso/labman/Section%20...gineering%22%22

 

http://www.mts.net/~william5/library/epalight.htm

 

For example, to light a space that uses computers, the overhead light fixtures should provide up to 30 fc of ambient lighting. The task lights should provide the additional footcandles needed to achieve a total illuminance of up to 50 fc for reading and writing. For illuminance recommendations for specific visual tasks, refer to the IES Lighting Handbook, 1993, or to the IES Recommended Practice No. 24 (for VDT lighting).