Problem with indoor lighting and green hue on viewfinder.

I got my d600 (WOOHOO) and outdoors it performs beautifully, however at work they use both UV and incandescent lighting which I can never get a good picture in. The only way to get around this terrible lighting is to keep the WB on auto and turn my exposure comp up, any tips? Also I've noticed my viewfinder has a bit of a green tint to it, after reading around I see its kind of common. Anybody else ave this problem? If so does it go away? Anyhow I love th
e new gear, its miles ahead of my old slr. Thanks for the feedback in advance.



Heres a picture of the funky lighting, even on auto the camera doesnt know what to do with it either. The onboard exposure meter says its spot on, however it'll come out like this. Only fix in bumping up the exposure comp or using filler flash.

White balancing with mixed indoor lighting is going to be an issue for just about any camera. I've never messed with the exposure compensation to correct it. Generally, if it's really bad I'll put it in Live View and cycle through the various WB settings until I find one that looks close to correct and fix the rest in Lightroom or Photoshop. If you need a jpeg to come out close to correct that's probably the easiest way to do it, or carry a gray card and set a custom white balance on site.

Never noticed a green tint in the viewfinder. I've heard tales of off color LED screens, but not the viewfinder.

A fluorescent photo filter is some type of magenta color which helps to neutralize the green tint of fluorescent lighting. I used Photoshop Elements 10 and checked to see what types of preset filters they have for photo filter adjustments. Since there weren't any fluorescent filters available, I outlined his skin tones and used a magenta filter with approximately 21% density. It might not be an exact match to his skin tone, but you might want to play around with a magenta filter in post editing to cut down on the green. Your other option would be to get a lens filter (which screws onto the front threads of your lens) that is specific for fluorescent lighting.



And here is the same amount of magenta applied to the entire photo--not just to his skin. For some reason, this second photo looks like the exposure was lightened, but it wasn't.

My quick fix for global color correction is a Levels Layer in Photoshop. Use the eyedropper tool and click on a midtone. BAM! Instant color fix. Your example shot couldn't be a better candidate for this technique because you have big, easy to work with areas of highlights, shadows AND mid-tones. In this correction, I've used the Midtones eyedropper only. It's a JPG, of course, so post-processing power is limited. Still, for what amounts to a one-click fix, it's a big improvement.

Thanks for the tips guys I'll try it adding some magenta post processing. Going to the beach today, I'll post some stuff later!