Yellow dogs

Up till now, all my shots have been with just one strobe, and AB800. Yesterday, my other 2 AB800's came in, so I went into the studio to play.

I have main strobe with 32x40 softbox set at F8 approx 45° camera left, about 3' away from the dogs. Second strobe is set at F5.6 approx. 3' away once again at approx 45° angle and a 24x36 softbox. Third strobe I have a diffuser on, set behind the dogs lighting the backdrop around 1/16th. power. I did not use a light meter on this one, I just took some shots and lowered the setting until the backdrop was lit enough to prevent shadows and brighten it a little.






According to both my camera and the lightmeter, these are properly exposed. So, why are my dogs yellow looking? They come out nice and bright with one strobe, so I am thinking it is a lighting issue.

If I increase the power, it just blows their fur out without making them white.

Thanks!

Exposure and color temperature of the strobes are two different things. I've not noticed that kind of color shift in my ABs when I dial them down but it can happen. If you're shooting RAW, just click on the dogs in ACR with the eye-dropper tool and that should bring them back to pure white or set the color temp to 5000 +/- depending on your other ACR settings.

Jim

Thanks Jim. I did use a gray card. I'll double check my settings again. I just thought it was odd.

One of the nice things about shooting white or black dogs is that you have a built-in neutral or gray card in the subjects themselves. I'm not always able to see subtle color shifts when looking at a gray card but I can always tell if my Rotties' coats are a little too brown or too blue .

Jim

Penny, it looks like a color temperature issue to me. And there are many things that could cause it. Since it happened when you added new light sources that is the first place to look.

If your old AB800 is more than 2 or 3 years old it may have a different UV rated flashtube. You could shoot each light bare to a Colorchecker to compare. In addition to introducing new light sources you have also introduced new modifiers. I'll bet the softboxes do not match in age/material/manufacturer/color temperature. The diffusion fabrics age, and maybe at different rates depending on usage (hot lights and hot modeling lights can affect them).

It is a good idea to label your lights so you'll be able to identify those two new lights and make it a point to use those as the two front lights where color temperature is most critical.

Thanks Jim! That is clever! Using the dogs themselves.
That is wonderful information Preston! I'll check when I get home today.

I can't speak to studio lighting... but I do lnow when shooting white dogs or snow I dial in +1 in exposure compensation so my whites are white and not gray. Don't know if this would work in the studio situation.

Thanks Lesley! Preston was right, I moved the 2 newer lights to the front, reshot using the same settings in the camera, and I have white dogs again. What a difference.

I seem to be having a similar problem. I'm using two stobes with silver umbrellas and no matter what I do I just can't get the yellow color out of these two cuties. Anybody have any ideas. TIC

BW conversion? What a cute puppy!

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BW conversion? What a cute puppy!

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Sounds like a good idea Jim but still didn't seem to work.