Fluorescent lighting can be found in many public places such as supermarkets, work places, offices and factories. Taking photographs under this light can produce green results. To correct this colour cast, a magenta filter can be applied to the lens. With a digital camera, the white balance setting will correct the cast automatically.
Below are a few example shots to show how different white balance settings alter the colour cast of a scene. Each photo is entitled with the name of the setting used.
Daylight
My first two examples were shot in my garage, one of an object in the room and the other directly at the source of the light. This light has given my photos taken with the daylight setting a slightly blue cast.
Fluorescent
In this example, the fluorescent lights have given the image of a toaster a greenish cast when the daylight setting was used.
Using auto balance seems to over compensate for the colour cast and gives the shots an orange haze.
Vapour Lamps
There are many types of vapour lighting; they are most commonly found in street lights but can also be found in floodlights of public buildings and sports stadiums. The easiest to spot are sodium lamps, they appear yellow and can photograph orange, yellow or slightly green. These cannot be corrected and have no blue at all. Other types of vapour lamps include mercury vapour and multi-vapour. These look very similar; they give off an intense and slightly blueish white light. Mercury vapour lamps photograph blue-green whereas multi vapour photograph white.
Below are a few examples of a scene lit by a sodium street lamp.
Tungsten
The tungsten balance has done quite a good job of correcting the bright orange cast from the sodium light, however it is not perfect and the scene is still orange. Auto, however has over compensated and turned the image yellow.
