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Adjusting light temperature
Hi,
Can someone suggest the best way/product to adjust color temperature to whatever number I need? Let’s say I shoot in a place that has overhead fluorescent lights at 5000k and my LED lights are 5600k. Which gels/filters should I use to balance them? Which product would you recommend? Is there a chart or some kind of an online reference I can follow to balance the lights every time?Thank you for any words of advice!
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4 Replies
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Usually, you use CTB gel to warm up 5600K. See this link, However, knowing what the resultant color temp is requires a meter that accurately reads the color temp. It’d be a lot easier to use a camera which can adjust to the existing color temp and white balance itself. Or, shoot in a way you can do it in post.
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[John Fishback] “Usually, you use CTB gel to warm up 5600K.”
Umm… I know that John knows what he’s talking about, so I think this was just a typo (unless he’s thinking about it backwards from what I am). To warm up your 5000°K LEDs to match the 5600°K ceiling flos, you’d actually use CTO on the LEDs, not CTB.
If he was talking about putting gel on all the overheads (which is doable, but a lot harder), then yes you’d use CTB on them, but that would be to cool them down (raise the K temperature), not warm them up.
CTB is blue gel, “Color Temperature Blue,” usually used for raising a color temp (cooling it)
CTO is orange gel, “Color Temperature Orange,” usually used to lowering a color temp (warming it)At any rate, you’re not going to need much to warm your LEDs from 5600K to 5000K… that’s not much of a jump at all… you certainly won’t need full CTO, or even half CTO. My guess is quarter-CTO or even eighth. The easiest cheapest thing would be to buy 1/8 CTO and see if that works. If it’s not enough, just double it up.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks, Todd. I did mean CTO.
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Thank you!
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