Night photo orange from street light

[legg360]

Hi, kinda new to photography and found a clock tower with the face lit up that I wanted try and capture. I had aperture open as wide as possible ISO800 as I increased the exposure time it was changing from dark to orange is there any way round this. There was very orange street lights 30m ish to each side

Thanks

 

[george g]

the image would help.

were the lights in the image? if they werent you probably got light pollution...

 

[legg360]

I deleted the images as they were no good, the lights were not in the pic they was to the rear left mostly masked by trees to the rear right was clear, is there any way of removing the orange glow from the pollution

 

[Shutter]

You will want to adjust your white balance.
I think you will want to set it to tungsten - I shoot in raw so just use auto mode *eek*

 

[Pookeyhead]

You will want to adjust your white balance.
I think you will want to set it to tungsten - I shoot in raw so just use auto mode *eek*

Why eek? If you shoot in RAW no while balance setting is actually embedded in the image. You can adjust white balance with a RAW in exactly the same way as you can in camera.

Hi, kinda new to photography and found a clock tower with the face lit up that I wanted try and capture. I had aperture open as wide as possible ISO800 as I increased the exposure time it was changing from dark to orange is there any way round this. There was very orange street lights 30m ish to each side

Thanks

The longer exposure is picking up local light pollution... nothing you can do. You can white balance it if you shoot RAW, but depending n the type of light colours may not be accurate afterwards.

If it's low pressure sodium lighting, you can balance the orange out, but colours will be wrong and desaturated afterwards. High pressure sodium will be better... but still not brilliant. Newer, fuller spectrum lighting will be OK, but the fact that it's orange would indicate it's sodium lighting of one kind or another, so just try it and see what happens.

 

[legg360]

Ill try changing the white balance next time and see what happens ive just got that set to auto at the mo not got that far into changing setting.

If it's low pressure sodium lighting, you can balance the orange out, but colours will be wrong and desaturated afterwards. High pressure sodium will be better... but still not brilliant. Newer, fuller spectrum lighting will be OK, but the fact that it's orange would indicate it's sodium lighting of one kind or another, so just try it and see what happens.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean and how you would "balance the orange out" please as im unsure what you mean by this

Thanks

 

[dave_bass5]

Hi, kinda new to photography and found a clock tower with the face lit up that I wanted try and capture. I had aperture open as wide as possible ISO800 as I increased the exposure time it was changing from dark to orange is there any way round this. There was very orange street lights 30m ish to each side

Thanks

Sometimes just reducing the Orange in software (or in camera if it allows) will correct this. If the overall WB is fine than this might be a better approach.

 

[george g]

Ill try changing the white balance next time and see what happens ive just got that set to auto at the mo not got that far into changing setting.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean and how you would "balance the orange out" please as im unsure what you mean by this

Thanks

How much were you listening in physics at school?

What was meant is that of the visible spectrum of radiowaves (red to violet) the average street lamp (low pressure sodium) emmits a very small spectrum of the visible wavelengths, thus any light that is reflected back into your eye or camera sensor will only be in this small spectrum.

Modern lights give off much more of the visible spectrum (which is safer as your eyes dont have to adjust as much). This has the added effect of not having to post process the images as much...

(I think thats right...)

One way to remove the need to change the photo too much is you can shoot it in black and white.

It sounds like you have light pollution though from the light, reflecting off things around/near you and being caught by the lens. try taking a photo of the clock further away from the lights/from a different angle? alternatively you can put the lens hood on - if you're zoomed in a little, try to extend the hood as far as possible. This should help reduce the light pollution as much as possible.

Thank you, I come here for first once.

WTF?? Spam bot?

 

[legg360]

From reading other stuff like people taking pics of stars it's a very similar orange glow to that so it probs is light pollution, Ill try it next time with a hood over the lens and playing with white balance and if all else fails in black and white.
I don't think I will be able to change angle or distance as there isn't much room (it's a clock tower by north quarry car park in the Malvern hills if any of you know the area, it's only a small clock tower but its pitch black behind with the clock face lit
Thanks for you help

 

[Pookeyhead]

Ill try changing the white balance next time and see what happens ive just got that set to auto at the mo not got that far into changing setting.



Can you explain a bit more what you mean and how you would "balance the orange out" please as im unsure what you mean by this

Thanks

In principle, there are two main types of orange street light: low and high pressure sodium. Lw pressure is a very narrow spectrum.. in fact, it's monochromatic, meaning it only contains one colour. SO if you try and remove the orange, it doesn't leave much behind. High pressure is a wider spectrum, so results will be better. They're both orange, but low pressure is a purre orange colour, and high pressure has a slightly pink hue to it... and is a paler orange.

To remove, there are loads of ways. In lightroom, you can pick up the white balance dropper tool, and then click it on something you know to be a neutral colour. If you take a test shot with a proper grey card in the image, you can use that as a reference.

Another way is in Photoshop, open a levels adjustment layer, select the mid range selection dropper, and do the same thing as above.. click on something that's a known neutral grey within the image.

How successful that will be depends on the light source used. If it's low pressure sodium, you're in trouble. You will be able to get rid of the orange, but what it leaves behind will not be accurate. High pressure will be more successful, but still not prefect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qd-3pe9fek