Color Temps confusion

jgoeden

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• Feb 21, 2006

• #1

Hey guys I always get the color temps all mixed up and whatnot. If I were to use tungsten film in daylight outside (like a nice partly cloudy and sunny day) am I going to get really warm pictures or really really cool pictures? Sorry for the stupidity :-( lol. thanks

 

Lee L

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• Feb 21, 2006

• #2

Color temperature refers to the color spectrum that a black body would emit if heated to a certain temperature on the Kelvin scale. Cooler temps are redder, like embers in a fire. Hotter temps go to white, then blue. Think about a candle flame. The hotter center part is blue, then yellow in the outer, cooler portions.

Your tungsten film is balanced for somewhere in the 2750K to 3200K range, and daylight is hotter, at about 5000K or so. Putting the "hotter" daylight onto the film will make it and the objects reflecting it appear excessively blue.

Lee

 

JBrunner

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• Feb 21, 2006

• #3

In the most simplistic of terms, outside light is blue, and tungsten light is yellow-orange.Uncorrected tungsten film shot in daylight will look blue, daylight film shot in tungsten will look yellow- orange. Interesting looks can be had by mixing color temps.

 

MattCarey

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• Feb 21, 2006

• #4

I can see where it is confusing. Lucky for me my background is in physics!

Lee covers the subject. Adding one more item--you can compensate with a yellow-ish filter. They make one especially for this, but I forget the number. I have used it (I bought a cheap box of film on eBay and found out that it was tungsten). It worked fine.

Matt

 

Kino

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• Feb 21, 2006

• #5

Tungsten in daylight, use an 85A Wratten; 85B if you want slightly warmer tones.

 

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jgoeden

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• Feb 22, 2006

• #6

Thanks

thanks guys for the help. i just always get it backwards. i'm not worried about correction filters, i've never even shot with tungsten but was thinking about trying it just to see. thanks for the help anyways, much appreciated. alright i'll take some tungsten to open daylight (maybe some shade too) and see what i can get. maybe i'll have my model wear white to make it look even colder. thanks! i'll post if i do it soon (but probably won't , deploying next month)