Florescent bulb color temp and video

Hi,
We have some fluorescent bulb fixtures in our room, and when they were installed decades ago it was specified that, for video purposes, those fixtures needed to use a special color temperature bulbs (3,800K as I recall) in order to not mess up the video.

Well, that was long ago and video technology has changed a lot since then. Now, we are replacing all of the fluorescent fixtures in our entire facility with newer, more efficient fixtures and bulbs, which are available in a color temp of 5,000 or 4,100.

Anyone here know if there is a problem using either of these color fluorescents with video? Is there a recommended color temp to use for fluorescents and video?

Hi,
We have some fluorescent bulb fixtures in our room, and when they were installed decades ago it was specified that, for video purposes, those fixtures needed to use a special color temperature bulbs (3,800K as I recall) in order to not mess up the video.

Well, that was long ago and video technology has changed a lot since then. Now, we are replacing all of the fluorescent fixtures in our entire facility with newer, more efficient fixtures and bulbs, which are available in a color temp of 5,000 or 4,100.

Anyone here know if there is a problem using either of these color fluorescents with video? Is there a recommended color temp to use for fluorescents and video?

If you have a choice, you might want to go with the 5000 bulbs that are closer to daylight and that is also one of the colour temperature settings you can select on the BMCC. From the manual:
White Balance
Your Blackmagic Cinema Camera includes 6 white balance presets for a variety of color temperature conditions. These are
‚ 3200K for tungsten light
‚ 4500K for fluorescent light
‚ 5000K, 5600K, 6500K and 7500K for a variety of daylight conditions such as time of day.

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

The color temp of your lights makes very little difference to your footage, as long as you white balance appropriately. Since most CMOS sensors, including BMCC, are more or less natively daylight-balanced, you could theoretically achieve a cleaner image by lighting and white balancing around 5000K.
Beyond this, the color of your lights is an artistic choice: do you want them to appear the same as daylight, or do you want them to match a lamp? Do you want the windows to appear bluish?

The real problems with fluorescents in video are the flicker and rolling effect when they aren't timed to the shutter; the continuous color fluctuation; and the green spike. But none of this is related to color temperature. It has to do with the quality if the tube and the ballast.

Thanks. We will end up setting up some temporary lights in an area of our room to test with, then make some decisions.

It is a long standing issue with photographers.
Do a google search for fluorescent correction filters.
Then add or subtract the colour.
Radman.

Hi,
We have some fluorescent bulb fixtures in our room, and when they were installed decades ago it was specified that, for video purposes, those fixtures needed to use a special color temperature bulbs (3,800K as I recall) in order to not mess up the video.

Well, that was long ago and video technology has changed a lot since then. Now, we are replacing all of the fluorescent fixtures in our entire facility with newer, more efficient fixtures and bulbs, which are available in a color temp of 5,000 or 4,100.

Anyone here know if there is a problem using either of these color fluorescents with video? Is there a recommended color temp to use for fluorescents and video?

Are you asking for shooting video or viewing video?

Attenzione!

color temperature does not mean equal spectral distribution of the light. In order to have a light that behave like a normal incandescence light (or the sun) the manufacturer should also eliminate the color spikes in the spectrum. the only real way to check is to use a spectrophotometer and see if the envelope of the spectrum is about constant without too many peaks and valleys... then you can emulate it as if it is a incandescent light.

remember that color temperature is only valid if the DeltaE (deviation) from the black body curve is minimal and there are no spikes...

Attenzione!

color temperature does not mean equal spectral distribution of the light. In order to have a light that behave like a normal incandescence light (or the sun) the manufacturer should also eliminate the color spikes in the spectrum. the only real way to check is to use a spectrophotometer and see if the envelope of the spectrum is about constant without too many peaks and valleys... then you can emulate it as if it is a incandescent light.

remember that color temperature is only valid if the DeltaE (deviation) from the black body curve is minimal and there are no spikes...

thanks for your effort

Was that sarcastic?