5600k and 3200k at sam time???

A

ajmax

Well-known member
Stick with me on this and I'll try my best to describe my situation...

I have to light a dinning room that has windows.
I want to use 3200k lights to light my subject.
I know that if i white balance to one color temperature, it will offset the other.

So here is my question: Can I white balance using both color temperatures mixed in?
Will the temps blend to make a good white balance where i can use my 3200k lights without them looking red or orange?

If this can't be done, I know that an HMI will be needed. In that case if i difuse the HMI or bounce it off a white board will my temperature remain at 5600k or will the diffusion and or bounce change the temperature???
I hope i explained it correctly...
Ray
 
Yeah, your choices are to gel the lights to 5600, gel the windows to 3200, or just black out the windows all together. If you really want you can get HMI's, but those are always a bit pricey.
 
You should get full CTB gels and gel your lights to match the color temperature of sunlight. Unfortunately, you'll end up cutting a lot of light that way, but if you have powerful enough lights it shouldn't be that big of a deal. And the sunlight coming in will more than compensate. We did this for a music video shoot and it turned out very well as far as color balance. And it's definitely the cheapest route to go.
 
Use flourescents. Kino flos are very nice for this kind of situation.

Otherwise, you can get away with balancing to 4100K or thereabouts and only putting CTB1/2 over tungsten lights. The outside will look a little blue, but not unnaturally so.
 
No two locations are the same, and the lighting requirements can be determined or preceived by several factors, opinions, the setting,furniture,blocking of actors,mood,script requirements, the director, the gaffer, when you have to get out of this location, your actors availability, and the construction of the room and it's ceiling height and where the windows are located, given your set....whew....
Now, I'll see if I can answer your question..lol
You can white balance your camera with both sources of light...It probably will NOT be pleasing color, and may make your film look like news footage. It would be best to white balance from the light providing the dominant source of light.
You should then(refer to my intro) consider several factors. Your available equipment, are they mostly tungsten ? You did mention an HMI, will you be renting more than one, and which lights ..200,400,800.1200 watts? How much of the daylight is contributing to your scene? Do you plan on shooting or including the windows in your shots ? These are things a gaffer should want to know before a shoot.
When you bounce daylight or tungsten into a piece of white foamcore, the light bouncing back will retain it's color temp.( if somebody wants to dispute this, and talk about things like distance to subject, relative humidity, the base color of the foamcore, and the fact that foamcore on the East coast is yellowier than that on the West coast- get a life)
Now, you need to tell us the time of day you plan on shooting. You said a dinning room, do you have actors around a table during the evening meal ?
This too would take into consideration your light requirements.
 
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filmat11 said:
When you bounce daylight or tungsten into a piece of white foamcore, the light bouncing back will retain it's color temp.( if somebody wants to dispute this, and talk about things like distance to subject, relative humidity, the base color of the foamcore, and the fact that foamcore on the East coast is yellowier than that on the Weast coast- get a life)
Click to expand...

Damn. I didn't know that was such a topic of debate. I guess it's a good thing that, in the midwest, we have perfectly white foamcore.:)
 
I have mostly tungston at about 500 watts each , I have 1 HMI at 400 watts.
The HMI will be to harsh to use so i have to diffuuse. I had a previous experience where I duffused the HMI with toughspun and my color temp changed making my subject look red/orange.
For this shoot I need my subjects to have a soft hardly no shadows look.
The closest visual i can compare to is a TV commercial that I have to try and create to..
Have you seen the latest Joe's Crab Shack spot where people are seated eating and you cann see in the background the windows .
the light comming from the windows is white not blue.
I know that tells me that they must have white balance to 56k.
However: the lghint used on the subjects in the foreground have a more rich color to them. To me that implies that they are not being light with 56k because the white balance would be correct but the vibrance would be a little flat.
Maybe what I am seeing was done in post???? I don't know.
But I think there has to be a way to achieve this on location..
Gels knock down alot of my light, so I guess what I am seeing, is there a way to trick the camera by using 2 diffrent yemps to the same white balance?
as for foam core. I think it's a DOP's best friend....
 
Sorry about the typos in my previous posts
I suck at typing and am to lazy to go throught the spell check
 
You'll probably only need 1/2 CTB on your tungsten lights. It's close enough to daylight, but will make your talent SLIGHTLY warmer. You might even experiment with 1/4 CTB. You can also use 1/4 or 1/2 cto on your HMI to warm up fleshtones as well. You'll get more light out of your HMI warmed up then tungsten cooled down. White balance for daylight and adjust your key's color for your taste. Look at the monitor and have a grip or gaffer hold 1/4 than half cto in front of your light..
My personal tastes of late, are to use harder edge lights, mirrors and bright colors in the background, and deep saturated colors and warm fleshtones.
Get gells for both types of light and use your tungstens for edge and fill and use your HMI for key.

EDIT: I would use a gell called OPAL for your hmi.
 
You have still left out two of the most important factors.
What time of day are you shooting?
What time of day do you want it to look like?
 
Yeh, if you want white light from the window and slightly warm light on the family, then go ahead and use 5.6k white balance, and those tungsten lights with only a partial CTB on them.

You could also get some compact fluorescent daylight-balanced lights for reasonable prices:

http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/45w_power_compact_67_prd1.htm
http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/55w_power_compact_68_prd1.htm
http://www.naturallighting.com/web/shop.php?crn=615&rn=2764&action=show_detail
http://www.naturallighting.com/web/shop.php?crn=615&rn=2761&action=show_detail
http://www.naturallighting.com/web/shop.php?crn=615&rn=2759&action=show_detail

They are all 5.5k with a CRI over 90. I just bought all of these lights and they look really good. Since they are fluorescents, they are already diffused, though you can add some if you like. They match perfectly with the light coming in through my windows. You can even throw a slight CTO on them to warm them up. Overall, it will consume less light and be a much cooler shoot than trying to use tungsten and CTB.
 
You could also get color swashes and white balance to different ones to achieve different looks. We just grabbed some from Home Depot in the paint section.
 
the paralight? what fixture does it go into?
or do i just get a socket and use a white board?
Ray
 
Try to balance everything to Tungsten because if you try to balance everything to daylight you will lose too much light trying to make your tungsten lamps blue (as opposed to making daylight more orange). It's more economical.
 
If you are shooting an indoor shot, in the daytime on video, you windows will be blown out. Unless you have multiple 575 or 1.2k hmis, to match the suns power, but thats just way too bright for talent to deal with indoors.

You best bet is to gel the windows down using an nd/cto roll. That way, you get the best of both world; only a slightly bluish hint of color at 32k, you can use your tungsten lights, AND your windows wont blow out.

By the way, the trick to gelling windows is to fill a spray bottle with water and add just a DROP of dishsoap. then mist that on both the window and the gel, get one corner of the gel in place, and cut the rest to fit the window with a box cutter or whatever, then spray a little mist on the outside and run a squeegee over the whole thing to get any air bubbles out.

good luck
 
Ok, nobody else has mentioned this so I thought I would chime in. I don't know how many or how big the windows are, but why not CTO the windows? A roll of full CTO is a pretty cheap solution. This will allow you to keep the CTB off your tungsten lights so they can retain their power. Also this will knock down the intensity of the sun which will further increase the effectiveness of your tungsten stuff and you won't need to futz with your HMI indoors which will also make your soundguy happy. As the sun moves you could probably use your HMI to keep the windows consistant, to some degree anyway obviously you won't be shooting night for day, well I hope not.

Also, if you know its going to be sunny, you can get CTO with ND as well.

Oh, you can also Straw instead of Orange, if you want a more sunset vibe. I have done this before and really liked it, but I love straw so go figure.

Just my two cents. Most of us don't have the $$$ or resources to go toe to toe with the sun, I try to take him out of the equation whenever possible.
 
NewYorkLion said:
If you are shooting an indoor shot, in the daytime on video, you windows will be blown out. Unless you have multiple 575 or 1.2k hmis, to match the suns power, but thats just way too bright for talent to deal with indoors.

You best bet is to gel the windows down using an nd/cto roll. That way, you get the best of both world; only a slightly bluish hint of color at 32k, you can use your tungsten lights, AND your windows wont blow out.

By the way, the trick to gelling windows is to fill a spray bottle with water and add just a DROP of dishsoap. then mist that on both the window and the gel, get one corner of the gel in place, and cut the rest to fit the window with a box cutter or whatever, then spray a little mist on the outside and run a squeegee over the whole thing to get any air bubbles out.

good luck
Click to expand...

I'm a jackass, missed this before I posted.
 
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