The photos were far from great - definitely not printable although they might just suffice for a website.
I have worked out what a few of the problems are. They all relate to light!
The first problem is that fluorescent lights, especially the old type, constantly change in brightness as the mains AC voltage changes. It does this 60 times per second. With the high shutter speeds required to capture the movement, the fluctuations in the light are also captured. Not only does this affect the exposure, but it also affects the colour.
These are not the regular White Balance problems one encounters. This is evident because there is not consistency across all the images. With a regular white balance problem the colour temperature may be wrong, but it would be 'the same' wrong for all the images.
If one looks at photo galleries on squash sites, one often sees the variation on colour, from yellowish to pinkish. In other words, the problem is not unique to me or to these courts.
The other problem is that the courts are generally pretty dark, which means one has to use a high ISO, which in turn means a lot of 'noise' in the images.
A third, less significant problem, is the reflections off the glass. These are aggravated by the light sources outside the court.
Okay - now that we have identified the problems, what can be done to remedy them?
The last problem is the probably the easiest - switch off the passageway lights. There are some other options as well but I won't bore you with them
The first two problems may be overcome by using a strong incandescent light source to augment the fluoros. I am thinking of experimenting with some of those 'el-cheapo' halogen lights that one can buy from hardware stores. By bouncing the lights off the ceiling, one would get nice, even lighting of the court similar to that provided by the existing lights but much brighter and stable.
I welcome comments about my thoughts, and any suggestions that might help with my photographing at these courts.
In cse anyone is interested, I used manual exposure, 1/600 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200. I experimented with Auto White Balance and the Fluorescent setting for the JPEGS. I also shot some in RAW. Theoretically, RAW should have overcome the colour problem but it couldn't compensate for the under-exposure.
Thanks
Ken