White Balance Challenge - reaching a compromise

[CaptainNH]

I shot a wedding last weekend in one of Sydney's most challenging (photographically) locations - Christ Church St Lawrence, in the Sydney CBD.

The church is old (relatively, for Australia), dark (it is in the middle of the CBD and surrounded by highrise buildings) and the lighting in the church is variable to say the least.

Here's my white balance challenge - shooting the processional from the rear of the church (the only place the priest allowed me to shoot from, oh and no flash) - the light sources from rear to front was:

Bright daylight (through the doors of the church) -> mixture of tungsten and compact fluros in the nave -> very warm, but still not bright, tungstens lighting the sanctuary.

Obviously, I shot in RAW however, in PP I found:

• Set WB for tungsten and the bows on the pew ends in the front of shot have a blue glow.
• Set WB for daylight and the sanctuary looks like it's lit with orange gelled lights.
• The fluro gives just a hint of green to everything

This shot is the compromise I reached:


Canon 5D2 | 1/160s | f/2.8 | ISO3200 | 24-70L @ 24mm

Any comments on how else I might have approached the WB? Other comments & critique welcomed!

[LeeR]

This kind of situation can be a real nightmare, but it appears you have come to the best possible compromise. I ran it through PS and I can certainly see that you don't want the green cast from the flourescents or the blue from the outdoor light. Going with a setting near daylight and allowing the tungsten lamps to go just a bit orange appears to be the wisest move. The only other possibility would be to take an HDR approach and try to to create layer masks that will allow you to use the appropriate lighting for each area. Not perfect, and terribly time consuming, but it could be done.