Due to school activities and Girl Guides, I have a LOT of photos happening in school gyms. The lighting is terrible, and I have yet to find the magic formula to make it look pretty. Any tips? Can anyone explain what makes these pictures so abysmal?
I think it's the lighting in the gyms and that they're rather dark places for a camera. What's your camera? Do you do any post processing? Photoshop or Lightroom?
and do you set your white balance for indoor lighting before shooting - this can help with getting the colors better before you post process.
It is hard because you need a fast shutter speed if they are moving (sports shots) but then it is dark in there so you need to let in more light. Try adjusting your ISO higher, but check for graininess. Do you shoot in Raw? If so, you can use Lightroom or Photoshop to lighten a dark picture. Like others said, you can also adjust the white balance.
I usually fix the yellow, and let it go. I accept that indoor photos are not going to be perfect especially in crappy gym lighting. I did use some of the tips above to fix before I took the photos, so they got a little better. But some of my favorites, I just had to let go and scrap the crappy lighting. I have turned some black and white too. That can make them pretty!
Yep to what the others have said. My son played basketball for years, so I have lots of gym photos. I never wanted to go too high on the ISO, but I wanted that shutter speed high to catch the action. It's a tough balance in that crappy lighting. MY SOOC shots are all really dark, but I usually just had to brighten them up and fix the white balance.
If I am in a school gym, I am just using my iPhone, but I have an app that lets me control all that. I will see if adjusting the whiteness level helps out, as a starter, and then see what else I need to add!
i'm not an iphone person but ditto what everyone said about light and ISO, shutter speed with movement and graininess and tinted light and white balance and then, unless you have a great light source, ultimately acceptance and conversion to grainy newspaper B&W style in post if there's enough contrast .... or if you can embrace blur, sometimes it can be scrapped more like art journal style. Good luck!
The Lightroom photo app lets you shoot in Raw I believe. In case you wanted to try a different app and see if that helps!
I'm not too savvy with my camera settings, but I noticed if I run a fade correction in Paint Shop it helps a lot. Especially turning the yellow walls back to a cream color. I just shot a band concert in a gym with my zoom lens and all the kids had white eyes. Creepy!
Ah yes... gym photos are the bane of my existence. They are so hard to get good! Our home gym has especially terrible yellow (and low) light. I get pretty good and correcting color balance in Photoshop. I usually add a color balance adjustment layer and clip it to the photo..... then bump the blue and cyan sliders up and also I usually have to lighten my pictures too. They are usually grainy too, BUT I'm happy to have the memories captured, so I don't obsess too much about it anymore.
Like @jk703 mentioned, you could try black and white so the colors can't offend your eyeballs. I do that, esp. if I have a vacation with indoor and outdoor pics (so it's quite hard to really "match" the colors). I've just recently discovered that the Curves adjustment layer has little eyedroppers: click on the top one to adjust black; middle dropper for gray; and the bottom for the lightest (white) values. You can click different areas on your photo to check which value is best. That has really helped my indoor photos. You may already know all of this, but it was mind-blowing for me! Adobe has a Help page with a great infographic that explains it better than I just did lol.
I have had a hate hate relationship with gyms for years. trying to capture gymnastics in the low light of a gym is soooo hard. Cranking up the ISO is one way but the pics then get grainy. A fast camera with the right lens is best. We did purchase a zoom lens that set us back a pretty penny but it did make a difference. Good luck.!!!