[Lowell Evan hayenga]

Hello Jeffrey,

I have some suggestions for you about color correction.
First of all let me say that my medium is film not video. Color temperatures are a entire complete science in itself when working with film. I also was a proof printer and color corrector in a professional photo lab so you can have confidence that what I tell you is not coming from an amateur.
What you need to start learning about is “color temperatures”. Color correction refers to the process of fixing a shot that is too yellow green or blue.
If you are using quartz halogen or tungsten lighting the temperature in degrees Kelvin coming from those sources is around 3200K. This is the area of range you want to work with indoors. If you are using a different kind of artificial light the temperatures aren’t going to be in this area. A lot of people in video are using those small curly cue lamps. But if you read the side of the bulb it will say it’s rated around 2750K. When color temperatures drop they begin to look blue. 5500 is normal daylight at noon and 3200K is normal for interiors. If you try and shoot film balanced for daylight indoors you have to add a lot of yellow to correct the blue. Vice versa if you shoot film balanced for 3200K outdoors you are going to have add a lot of blue.

But remember I’m talking about film and your talking about video. Her’s what probably happened. In video it’s always important to “white balance” every shot you take. This will give your camera the information about the lighting temps and it will tell itself that this is white. Then it’s able to correctly handle all colors in the spectrum. So always white balance every single shot. Next, you want to make sure that the lighting sources you’re using are all the same color temperature. If you are mixing temps you will have a nightmare to solve. So check the fixtures or bulbs for their temps. It’s normally a 4 digit number followed by a K. If you would like, I can send you a list of different light sources and their temperatures. That way you can make a fairly good judgment about the color temp if the bulb or housing doesn’t provide you the temp.
Obviously the camera was not reading the light source properly when the shot turned yellow. Remember when color temps rise they turn yellow and when they drop they turn blue. The camera was obviously reading the color temp around 5000K or so, If the rest of the scene looked normal, chances are the color temps were around 3400K and the camera was “white balanced” at that temp. so when it moved into 5000K it rose in temp about 1600K and that’s why it was yellow. The area of distance between the light source and subject will also make temps rise.
So, now that your totally confused try doing this next time,

1)Make sure all your light sources are the same color temp. Don’t mix them.
2)Try and light the entire set before you begin shooting and don’t change any positions of light sources until your done with that set.
3)Always “White Balance” EVERY SINGLE SHOT. If you take a shot of a man seated at a table then take a CU of an ashtray nearby you have to “White Balance” the area of the ashtray because your light source is at a different distance and your lens mm most likely changed if you zoomed in for a tighter shot.
“White Balance” EVERY SINGLE SHOT.”White Balance” EVERY SINGLE SHOT.”White Balance” EVERY SINGLE SHOT.
Even if your light sources gave different color temps “white balancing will solve the issue.
You people got it made having that feature at your fingertips. We don’t have that luxury in film. we have to color correct lighting with either filters on the lens or gel filtration on the lights and this information comes from dozens of tables, charts and references.
I’ll give you a little advice about video. You may already know it or not.

The digital image isn’t really an image at all. when they say digital runs at 27,45 fps there aren’t any frames either. The image is stored in the camera in a series of numerical patterns. Numbers are what the camera records not pictures. Video also needs a lot of light to get good color saturation but the latitude (f stops between light and dark is very small) 4 stops maybe on a good camcorder. That means when you are at the correct exposure you c have only 2 f stops above before your image gets hot spots and 2 stops below before you lose all detail in the shadows. But video needs a lot of light to look good so how do you solve this problem. Start using filtration on your lens. Mainly Neutral density and Low Contrast or Ultra Contrast filters. They both do the same thing. They take the areas that are brightly lit and send that light into the shadow areas without changing any color at all in the rest of the shot. You could say they distribute the light evenly across the entire image area.
I have both the ASC manual and the ASC videographers manual. Did you know that the ASC video manual spends almost 60 pages covering filters while it only spends maybe 40 on lighting? That should tell you something.

Anyway, sorry for the email novel but I happen to know a lot about this subject and I’m always willing to share it with someone else to help them move ahead.
Take Care. Stay Creative. I’d love to see some of your images some time!
Best regards,
Evan Hayenga~