Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
What is the best way to compensate for the off balance of color (yello hue) if Iâm shooting on location under tungsten lights?
What are the best Filters?
I have a digital camera and can adjust my K color temperature compensation but Iâm not sure on the best color temperature. Anybody have any suggestions?
What about florescent lights?
Photographer
rishwain and randall
Posts: 2
Santa Barbara, California, US
you have to raise the color temp to match the day light temp. so you have to go from 3200 degrees to 5600. you can get filers to put over the front of the light. got to www.bhphotovideo.com lee filters makes them, rossco also is another. very cheap and a must have. read the descriptions to figure it all out. hope this helps. also look for day light balenced flourecent lights at the Home Depot. rely nice,soft light. peace timothy
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
Are all Tungsten lights going to give off the same color temp? Is there any way to know the color temp or is trial and error the best way to figure it out?
Thanks for the trial and error starting point.
Photographer
Wayne Higgins
Posts: 34
If you are shooting digital, filters aren't needed simply adjust the white balance of the photograph. You didn't mention whether you where shooting RAW files or jpegs. If RAW, the white balance can be adjusted in the RAW converter. If you are shooting jpegs simply shoot a gray card (or even a white peice of paper) to fill the frame in the lighting in question and use this frame to as a white balance to batch process the remaining photos. Flourescents and other lighting such as mercury vapor lamps found in large halls and arenas can be much more difficult as the colors are all over the map.
Hope this helps.
Wayne
Photographer
William Kious
Posts: 8842
Delphos, Ohio, US
Are you wanting to shoot in a location with existing tungsten lighting (standard lightbulbs) - or are you introducing the tungsten?
Photographer
Wayne Higgins
Posts: 34
Tungsten lamps change color as they age. This is why photofloods (hotlights) have such a short lifespan to try and compensate for this change.
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
Wayne Higgins wrote:
If you are shooting digital, filters aren't needed simply adjust the white balance of the photograph. You didn't mention whether you where shooting RAW files or jpegs. If RAW, the white balance can be adjusted in the RAW converter. If you are shooting jpegs simply shoot a gray card (or even a white peice of paper) to fill the frame in the lighting in question and use this frame to as a white balance to batch process the remaining photos. Flourescents and other lighting such as mercury vapor lamps found in large halls and arenas can be much more difficult as the colors are all over the map.
Hope this helps.
Wayne I will shoot raw and your advice will help. Thanks.
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
William Kious wrote:
Are you wanting to shoot in a location with existing tungsten lighting (standard lightbulbs) - or are you introducing the tungsten? Yes, In a location with existing lighting.
Photographer
William Kious
Posts: 8842
Delphos, Ohio, US
Parniferious wrote:
Yes, In a location with existing lighting. Well, the best thing you can do is reach a happy medium. You might get some hot spots of off color, but these can be corrected during editing (or used to your benefit.) Manually set your camera's white balance and rock on (don't trust the auto setting.)
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
William Kious wrote:
Well, the best thing you can do is reach a happy medium. You might get some hot spots of off color, but these can be corrected during editing (or used to your benefit.) Manually set your camera's white balance and rock on (don't trust the auto setting.) What happens if I start mixing light sources. If I use a flash? Is this just going to complicate things further? Any problems with mixing different light sources?
...and you pics are inspirational. The one of your kid is very cool.
Photographer
Dave Krueger
Posts: 2851
Huntsville, Alabama, US
Parniferious wrote:
What is the best way to compensate for the off balance of color (yello hue) if Iâm shooting on location under tungsten lights?
What are the best Filters?
I have a digital camera and can adjust my K color temperature compensation but Iâm not sure on the best color temperature. Anybody have any suggestions?
What about florescent lights? Photo floods are about 3200K and can be compensated with an 80A filter.
Standard light bulbs will be roughly 2900K and can be compensated with an 80A plus 82A.
Cool white flourescents can generally be compensated with a 30M. That will get you close even if they are daylight or warm white. All flourescents have a huge green spike in the spectrum which causes the major part of the balance problem.
If you can adjust for the color temp, then you don't need the filters, of course. My camera has a manual white balance where I just point it at something white and push a button. It then makes the adjustment for the light.
-Dave
Photographer
JM Dean
Posts: 8931
Cary, North Carolina, US
Photographer
Scott Aitken
Posts: 3587
Seattle, Washington, US
You don't mention what camera you are using (other than it is digital). If you are in mixed lighting, it may be best to leave it on "auto white balance". Some camera's have relatively accurate auto white balance; others do not. If you shoot RAW, it is easy to adjust white balance in post processing in Photoshop CS (or CS2). If you are shooting any kind of digital, then don't bother with filters. White balance can be corrected either in camera or in post processing, without having to compromise your optics or f-stops.
Photographer
Things To Look At
Posts: 44
New York, New York, US
Are you shooting a subject under these lights?
If so you may want to correct any fluorescent lights with theatrical gels on the light itself. The green kick from fluorescents tends to create a harsh contrast on the skin (making skin blotchy, etc) and filtering afterwards (in camera adjustments or filtering the lens) will remove the color, but not the contrast.
Its kind of a cool look sometimes, but not always one you want.
x,
b.
Photographer
La Seine by the Hudson
Posts: 8587
New York, New York, US
Ok, the official answer is 3200K but almost no household bulbs burn as warm (meaning as cool a temperature) as a true 3200K rated tungsten-halogen for photo purposes. You don't need any of the blue colored filters (80A or 80B), those are for balancing daylight film to tungsten conditions and they cut a LOT of light. That's one of the few true advantages of digital, the ability to white balance at any point with any exposure.
Therefore, the answer is to use somewhere between 2800K (as low as a lot of cameras will go) and 3200K, trial and error and fine tune. Unless of course you have a color temp meter but if you don't, don't sweat it. I never really work with them either.
As for flourescents... now this is where it gets comlicated. Generally a flourescent will be "rated" somewhere in the low 4000s, but this is deceiving. Flourescent light is not a continuous spectrum, it puts out several colors without any of the "in between" colors of the rainbow, which no matter how you balance it just never looks truly like "natural" light, though the quality of flourescent, while unnatural, can be quite beautiful. Different tungsten bulbs are rated at different temperatures, and there are some that are specifically designed to "match" daylight, some merely for ambient purposes, and some for photographic viewing/photography purposes. In the case of any non-photographic purpose flourescent, if you want to approximate "accurate" color, try gelling your bulb with a "minus flourescent" (which is magenta-ish) or a CC 030 magenta gel and then try your color temp somewhere between 4000 and 5000 K and fine tune. Otherwise, forget the gel and just try the low 4000s and see what you get.
I personally love the look of both daylight and tungsten balanced film shot under uncorrected flourescent light, but for some reason it just doesn't quite look the same shot digitally. Doesn't mean you can't experiment though.
Oh, I never do it this way, but you can also set your white balance off a grey card.
Photographer
- null -
Posts: 4576
Parniferious wrote:
What is the best way to compensate for the off balance of color (yello hue) if Iâm shooting on location under tungsten lights? Add blue. Smear smurfs on the lens.
Photographer
William Kious
Posts: 8842
Delphos, Ohio, US
Parniferious wrote:
What happens if I start mixing light sources. If I use a flash? Is this just going to complicate things further? Any problems with mixing different light sources?
...and you pics are inspirational. The one of your kid is very cool. Thanks for the compliment - it's always nice to hear good things! 
Let's say you set your camera on "auto white balance" and use a flash. The camera will likely automatically select a white point close to 5000 K (I'm assuming that you're going to use a dedicated, on-camera flash.) Essentially, whatever the flash illuminates is going to look "correct" but you will notice color change as the flash's light falls off. If you are mixing flash and tungsten, your color will fade into warmer oranges. With flourescent, you're going to see a fall off into greens/sickly yellow.
Shooting in RAW will help you correct white balance, but it won't magically fix sharp transitions between two different light sources. Take a few test shots with flash fill. If the fall-off areas are too orange, then adjust your white balance manually to a "cooler" temperature. Shoot again and adjust as necessary until you hit a point of compromise that you are happy with (don't try to make it perfect.)
Sometimes you can achieve nice effects by mixing light sources, but it takes some planning to pull it off successfully.
Photographer
Dave Krueger
Posts: 2851
Huntsville, Alabama, US
Parniferious wrote:
What happens if I start mixing light sources. If I use a flash? Is this just going to complicate things further? Any problems with mixing different light sources? You can get lighting gels from theatrical supply shops that will make your flash look like anything you want it to. If you're shooting under flourescents, you can get green gels to put over your flash specifically for that purpose. Same with with tungsten, only they'll be orange. They're made by rosco (and another supplier whose name escapes me at the moment). I'm sure they have a website, though.
-Dave
EDIT: ROSCO Website http://www.rosco.com/us/index.asp
The other supplier is Lee.
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
Marko Cecic-Karuzic wrote:
Ok, the official answer is 3200K but almost no household bulbs burn as warm (meaning as cool a temperature) as a true 3200K rated tungsten-halogen for photo purposes. You don't need any of the blue colored filters (80A or 80B), those are for balancing daylight film to tungsten conditions and they cut a LOT of light. That's one of the few true advantages of digital, the ability to white balance at any point with any exposure.
Therefore, the answer is to use somewhere between 2800K (as low as a lot of cameras will go) and 3200K, trial and error and fine tune. Unless of course you have a color temp meter but if you don't, don't sweat it. I never really work with them either.
As for flourescents... now this is where it gets comlicated. Generally a flourescent will be "rated" somewhere in the low 4000s, but this is deceiving. Flourescent light is not a continuous spectrum, it puts out several colors without any of the "in between" colors of the rainbow, which no matter how you balance it just never looks truly like "natural" light, though the quality of flourescent, while unnatural, can be quite beautiful. Different tungsten bulbs are rated at different temperatures, and there are some that are specifically designed to "match" daylight, some merely for ambient purposes, and some for photographic viewing/photography purposes. In the case of any non-photographic purpose flourescent, if you want to approximate "accurate" color, try gelling your bulb with a "minus flourescent" (which is magenta-ish) or a CC 030 magenta gel and then try your color temp somewhere between 4000 and 5000 K and fine tune. Otherwise, forget the gel and just try the low 4000s and see what you get.
I personally love the look of both daylight and tungsten balanced film shot under uncorrected flourescent light, but for some reason it just doesn't quite look the same shot digitally. Doesn't mean you can't experiment though.
Oh, I never do it this way, but you can also set your white balance off a grey card. Thanks for the numbers. I needed a starting point and you have supplied that.
Time to experiment.
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
William Kious wrote:
Let's say you set your camera on "auto white balance" and use a flash. The camera will likely automatically select a white point close to 5000 K (I'm assuming that you're going to use a dedicated, on-camera flash.) Essentially, whatever the flash illuminates is going to look "correct" but you will notice color change as the flash's light falls off. If you are mixing flash and tungsten, your color will fade into warmer oranges. With flourescent, you're going to see a fall off into greens/sickly yellow.
Shooting in RAW will help you correct white balance, but it won't magically fix sharp transitions between two different light sources. Take a few test shots with flash fill. If the fall-off areas are too orange, then adjust your white balance manually to a "cooler" temperature. Shoot again and adjust as necessary until you hit a point of compromise that you are happy with (don't try to make it perfect.)
Sometimes you can achieve nice effects by mixing light sources, but it takes some planning to pull it off successfully. Yes dedicated, on camera flash.
I'm feeling much more confident about shooting under tungsten lights now thanks to all the great advice.
Photographer
Ama Lea
Posts: 140
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California, US
I use 1/4 blue gels over my flash or strobe heads. I feel that as long as skin tones are accurate its okay to not be completely color correct
Photographer
La Seine by the Hudson
Posts: 8587
New York, New York, US
Dave Krueger wrote:
You can get lighting gels from theatrical supply shops that will make your flash look like anything you want it to. If you're shooting under flourescents, you can get green gels to put over your flash specifically for that purpose. Same with with tungsten, only they'll be orange. They're made by rosco (and another supplier whose name escapes me at the moment). I'm sure they have a website, though.
-Dave
EDIT: ROSCO Website http://www.rosco.com/us/index.asp
The other supplier is Lee.
Photographer
asight2see
Posts: 39
Athens, Georgia, US
Eric Muss-Barnes wrote:
Add blue. Smear smurfs on the lens. Can I find some smurfs at my local photo store? ...or do I have to special order those?
Photographer
Karl Blessing
Posts: 30911
Caledonia, Michigan, US
Parniferious wrote:
Can I find some smurfs at my local photo store? ...or do I have to special order those? Well if you capture the Papa Smurf, then the only female smurf that exist, i'm sure the rest of the village will come along soon.
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