Russel

No, this effect is purely the cycling of fluorescent lights. Here's a link with a couple pictures, you'll find many like it if you scan photography forums for "fluorescent"

 

Dave

OK, I think I understand what you mean. The problem, as I understand it, occurs a shutter speeds higher than 1/60 of a second. That explains why I have never encountered a problem with it. When I have used fluorescent lighting for photography I use a fairly small aperture F8 being the fastest, and quite often F16, F22, or F36. That requires me to use a slow shutter speed and a tripod. I appears that slower shutter speeds don't have a white balance problem with fluorescent light.

Thank you for the information! It is alway good to learn something new.

Here is a link I found: Problem with fluorescent lighting and sutter speed

P.S. Now I have another reason to prefer natural light.

Keep in mind a fluorescent light will cycle across colors, and no amount of automatic or manual white balance setting will solve that issue. Sports photographers have issues in gymnasiums where one photo out of every 5 or so images will be a different color, like yours above. If that's the issue, you can't fix this in the camera, you just shoot some extra images to make sure you catch the light in its "normal" color.

 

Dave

If the light source is consistent then the white balance should also be consistent. When using artificial light I use flourescent exclusively. I've never noticed any shift in white balance. I have run across inconsistent white balance if there is sunlight as well as fluorescent in the image. If two light sources with different color temperatures are illuminating the subject then is it practically impossible to get a consistent white balance. Did the gymnasium you spoke of have any sunlight shining into it?

Keep in mind a fluorescent light will cycle across colors, and no amount of automatic or manual white balance setting will solve that issue. Sports photographers have issues in gymnasiums where one photo out of every 5 or so images will be a different color, like yours above. If that's the issue, you can't fix this in the camera, you just shoot some extra images to make sure you catch the light in its "normal" color.

 

Dave

If the light source is consistent then the white balance should also be consistent. When using artificial light I use flourescent exclusively. I've never noticed any shift in white balance. I have run across inconsistent white balance if there is sunlight as well as fluorescent in the image. If two light sources with different color temperatures are illuminating the subject then is it practically impossible to get a consistent white balance. Did the gymnasium you spoke of have any sunlight shining into it?

I would suggest investigating your camera first, assuming that you haven't already, before looking for a replacement.

What model is your Sony camera?

It appears that your camera chose different white balance settings even though you used the same light. I may be able to look up the user manual and help you with the settings if I know the model.

One thing that I have noticed with point and shoot digital cameras that I've used. If the light source is good and bright I usually get consistent settings when using automatic modes. I don't know if it will make much difference with your camera, but it may be worth a try.

Today it was completely overcast:

So, I decided to try some photographs with the ultimate light box, the entire cloud covered sky:

The result wasn't too bad. These two photographs of a silver eagle were taken from a window sill with unobstructed light from outside, full overcast sky.

Here are some photos of Silver Eagles in different lighting.

Defused light: (Note: I'm not sure why the obverse view looks almost milky.)

Defused light with some reflected from about 45° up and to the left:

Defused light with some reflected from the top of the coin about 70° from horizontal:

From what I can tell, the best lighting really depends upon the coin. This silver eagle has an almost frosted look to the surface. Not too shiny, so it tends to look better with softer light.

A little more experimentation:

These are taken with sunlight from the upper right with white plastic to soften the light. This time I set the coins on a half inch riser so that the black felt background would be out of focus. Still haven't found the best way to photo shiny coins.

This is the best that I've been able to come up with for a new penny.

The soft light works well with toned pennies.

Not too bad with silver coins. (I was carefull with the white balance, but the quarter still appears a little bluish.)

Adding a little angle adds to the photo sometimes. Although it complicates things a little by adding depth of field to the equation.

I also tried a close up with this lighting. Not too bad, but I'm not totally happy with the result.

I've got to figure out the best way to light the reflective field of the coin so that it doesn't get that strange dark look.

Still plugging away at it...

I want to make a jig to hold a SLR UV filter at 45°, so that I reflect light coming from the side straight at a coin and also have the camera pointed straight at it.

It seem to me that shiny coins are a lot harder to photograph well. Here are a couple more attempts:

This is with defused light, using a single sheet of plastic rather than a light box.

This is direct sunlight:

I want to try reflecting light off glass between the camera and lens as soon as I get some optical glass.

I am curious as to what you consider the best coin photography lighting method is. I took a few photos in sunlight shining on a light box. I seems to me that light coming from the top of a coin looks the most natural. But, I noticed that coins with less toning tend to wash out, with the exception of the penny that has more color.

My first light box test photos:

A couple coins with toning:

And a silver dime that seems to wash out. Granted I can adjust the image to improve contrast, but I find that I get better photographs if the lighting f-stop and white balance are set in the camera so that no or little image adjustment is needed.

Not really worth more than it's melt value, but I like the way it looks.