Lighting temp chart?

[rgrebby]

Does anyone have any simple layed out info about what types of light give what kind of temp.

For example, those horrible street lights, what type of light are they, what gels should I use.

Simple house lights, similar questions.

 

[cowasaki]

http://www.3drender.com/glossary/colortemp.htm

 

[Garry Edwards]

That's a pretty good link, although I had to laugh at this bit

So, why do we measure the hue of the light as a "temperature"? This was started in the late 1800s, when the British physicist William Kelvin heated a block of carbon. It glowed in the heat, producing a range of different colors at different temperatures. The black cube first produced a dim red light, increasing to a brighter yellow as the temperature went up, and eventually produced a bright blue-white glow at the highest temperatures.

And I'm sure that William Thomson (later to become Lord Kelvin) would have laughed too...

The problem with any chart is that the figures shouldn't be taken as gospel - naturally occurring light (e.g. sunlight) is obviously subject to huge variations, but artificially generated continuous lighting sources vary a lot too, simply because most people have to plug them into domestic power circuits, and their voltage varies a lot.

How much? Well, typically a 3200K continuous light actually measures at somewhere between 2600 and 3300K, although 2700 - 3200 is more normal. Problem is, we can measure it with a colour temperature meter and then it suddenly changes, which is one of the reasons why nearly every shot taken with continuous light has a different colour temperature.

 

[rgrebby]

Thanks mate, that works great!

 

[HoppyUK]

Does anyone have any simple layed out info about what types of light give what kind of temp.

For example, those horrible street lights, what type of light are they, what gels should I use.

Simple house lights, similar questions.

The best guide is in the 5D2 handbook (page 65 ). It tells you what's what and also what your camera sets to on the white balance presets.

You don't use gels to adjust colour temperature with digital - that's a film thing (because you can't adjust it). The only time you would use a gel is when you have two different types of light and want to balance them. You can't do this in post processing.

For example, flash in tungsten room light, use a light orange/yellow CTO gel on the flash. You might want to use a greenish gel for fluorescent light with flash, but fluorescents vary quite a lot (as do street lights). That's it pretty much. Once you've got the balance about right, if colour is critical you can tweak the overall colour in post processing.