How can I get better skin tones and color in city night portraits under orange streetlights?
Asked 10/9/2012
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I shoot night portraits in the city with a Canon 5D Mark III and an 85mm f/1.2. Under many streetlights, especially the orange sodium-vapor type, my images get unpleasant orange or blue casts and skin tones look bad. I’ve tried white balance changes, adding my own light, and using colored gels, but the results still don’t look like the cleaner nighttime portraits I see elsewhere. Is there a practical way to improve color for night portraits in the city?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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The trick is very easy, actually: bring your own lighting. The existing orange sodium-vapor lighting is missing important parts of color spectrum, so those colors will never be reflected from anything. Filtering will only further reduce the colors available for recording.
The "good" examples in the question look very much like one would get with a couple of off-camera flashes. I would also bring a softbox, beauty dish or umbrella, although the photos here seem to do without (considering the harsh shadow on woman's cheek / man's chin).
You could try setting your camera to Tungsten white balance and using a CTO (or CTS) gel on your flash to reduce the orange-ness of ambient lighting.
And if using your own lighting is not an option, there's always the classic alternative - ditch colors altogether by processing the photos in black and white.
Originally by user4390. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4390
13y ago
0
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Yes, but there’s no magic lens filter. The main issue is the light source: many orange streetlights (especially sodium-vapor) have a very limited spectrum, so accurate color simply isn’t available to record.
Best options:
- bring your own light: off-camera flash is the most effective fix. Use a softbox, umbrella, or similar modifier if possible.
- match ambient light: try tungsten white balance and a CTO/CTS gel on your flash so your subject and background blend more naturally.
- use custom white balance if there’s at least some fuller-spectrum light in the scene.
- shoot RAW and fine-tune color in post, especially with HSL/HSV controls for orange, red, yellow, and magenta.
- choose locations with better mixed lighting, or shoot slightly earlier when there’s still some ambient dusk light.
- if color still looks bad, convert to black and white.
So the “trick” in many good examples is often better ambient lighting, added flash, and careful post-processing—not a special filter on the lens.
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