Sport and Sporting Accessories Photo Session

Today, I would like to share with you my experience in an on-site photo session at the fitness centre. This was a typical situation where I had to work with conflicting lights. "Conflicting Lights" refers to an environment in which there are mixed colour temperature lightings that can ruin the best of shots.

 The workout room was lit with fluorescent lamps emitting light at temperature between 5000K and 6000K (K stands for Kelvin temperature). In contrast, the hardwood floors were throwing off offensive reflection of light at around 2,500K on the object. This posed a very challenging situation for the photographer.

To make the situation even worse, objects were moving and the intensity of ambient light was low. A decision had to be made: Should I use a speedlight and keep the ISO within mid-range OR should I go for high ISO (accepting a higher level of image noise), adjust the light temperature using a grey card and totally rely on the surrounding ambient lighting.

Well …... I decided to use a combination of both and in the process, I have also had to change the speedlight setup depending on the situation -- STILL or MOVING OBJECTS.

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Recommended speedlight setups on camera:

      1. Flash synchronization in Av Mode 1/200-1/60sec Auto with mid-range ISO speed between 1000 and 1500 for fast moving objects.

      2. Fully automatic flash synchronization in Av Mode with high ISO      speed around 2000 or more and High ISO Noise Reduction setup for fast moving objects.

      3. Tripod, no “Fill-in” flash, and fully depend on the ambient lighting.

Additional info: For setup 1 and 2 above, the following camera settings were also used: Flash Exposure Compensation (-1) and Exposure Compensation (between +1/3 and +1).

NOTE: Post-production colour adjustments are critical.