Lighting Cheat Sheet

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Lighting Cheat Sheet
A bit of an explanation about color temperature (from Wikipedia):
Theory:
Color temperature is a characteristic of visible light that has important
applications in photography, videography, publishing and other fields. The color
temperature of a light source is determined by comparing its chromaticity (the
quality of its color) with a theoretical, heated black-body radiator. The Kelvin
temperature at which the heated black-body radiator matches the color of the
light source is that source's color temperature.
In practice, the lower temperatures of Kelvin appear
RED
and the higher temperatures
appear BLUE.
Film is made for specific light sources
(daylight
film and
tungsten
film), and used
properly will create a neutral color print. Matching the color sensitivity of the film to the
color temperature of the light source is one way to balance color.
If tungsten film is used indoors with incandescent lamps, the yellowish-orange light of
the tungsten [incandescent] bulbs will appear as white (3200 K) in the photograph.
Some common examples of the Kelvin scale applied to light sources:
* 1700 K: Match flame
* 1850 K: Candle
* 2800 K: Household lightbulb
* 3200 K: Studio Tungsten lamp
* 3400 K: Studio lamps, photofloods, etc...
* 4100 K: Moonlight
* 5000 K: Daylight
* 5500 K: Average daylight, average electronic flash
* 5770 K: Effective sun temperature
* 6500 K: Daylight (actual range is between roughly 4500 and 10,000!!)
* 9300 K: TV screen (analog)
The two points in the range we worry most about are the tungsten and daylight points.
These are what film stocks are rated to and what we base everything on.
Video is different: The video sensor is balanced to recognize a certain limited range of
color as WHITE. All other colors will then shift in comparison. We call it WHITE
BALANCING.
You might turn your camera on outdoors, look at the viewfinder and see that
everything has a blue cast to it. If you point the camera at a white object and white
balance the camera to that color, then the image will be adjusted accordingly. We
sometimes call it “dialing out the blue”. It’s like you’ve just drained all the blue out of
the image.

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