Mon Mar 28, 2016 5:54 am
Very few of today's lights are actually 3200K, many are closer to 4000K if you take a color meter to them. Also it takes more light with lower temp. lights to get the lighting and color saturation correct. True 3200K tungsten lights come closest to mimicking full spectrum found in sunlight, the rest of the artificial lights do not. I shoot most of my my interior / stage shots at 4K-4500, and either add more light or use a fast lens, or both. Also when using cooler light sources like LEDs, or Flos require a green-magenta shift in color balance to get the saturation/color!looking right. I use a 81, 82 or 85 warming filter to help improve color saturation in theses situations.
Light at 5000K produces roughly neutral light, whereas 3000 K and 9000 K produce light spectrums which shift to contain more orange and blue wavelengths, respectively. As the color temperature rises, the color distribution becomes cooler. This may not seem intuitive, but results from the fact that shorter wavelengths contain light of higher energy.
Also, a variety of artificial light sources lack a "total spectrum" of light, and will therefore appear less saturated than daylight, which contains a greater range of light wavelengths, which creates our perception of color and saturation. Look at a red or green object under a light that only omits a monochromatic (single) wavelength at around 600mn and the green will appear grey, and the red will look almost black, as this light source does not contain any light in the spectrum required to see red or green colors. This is a fairly complex subject, and takes time to study. Do a search on color balance vs color saturation, and light spectrum frequencies, and using filters to correct for lighting issues. This is a science in its own right, and understanding how to use this, and understanding how it reacts with film, or camera sensors, is what being a Photographer or Cinematographer, or DP is all about.
Light balance and color shifts occur for a variety of reasons, our eyes/brain correct for these based on our experience. So what looks good to you, might appear warm or cool to another. Some people prefer highly saturated colors, others less saturation. Color perception is just that, it is a Perception -- not an absolute.
How we use this, is our creative choice to, convey a mood or feeling in our images. You can balance a moon lit scene with themWB on the moon, to get white around the moon, cooler blues in the night, while the warm glow from a nearby tugsten lights in a doorway or street light add warmer looking color and more saturation. Color balance on the building and tungsten light, and the entire scene is much cooler, like the night, cold and dark, with little color saturation.
Denny Smith
SHA Productions