Are These Lights Worth Buying?

[Reelkid]

I'm currently on a tight budget and I'm shopping for some remotely decent lights for a comedy sketch. I found these on ebay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Multiblit...Photography_Lighting_Kits&hash=item27ef809b8b


they look decent and portable but I did some research on them and apparently the colour temperature is 3200K which I think would be 'orangy'. Ideally, I was told that 5400k is the best type of artificial light. If I just changed the bulbs to a 5400k bulb would this solve the issue? or is the 3200k fixed with the hardware?

I also found these but they are also 3200K:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LOWEL-TOT...Photography_Lighting_Kits&hash=item2c8fcabdfd

I realise this is an extremely nooby question.

Please go easy on me, thanks in advance.

PS.

I don't have much of a budget, the max I can spend is £180.

Cheers

 

[paulears]

To be honest I suspect you have your lines crossed a bit with the colour temperature. Most tungsten lamps are 3200K. The 5600K lamps tend to be the discharge types in more serious lighting. The choice is only important if there is colour matching to do - so if you have windows that let in sunlight, then the sunlight is bluer - so to match it you use higher CT lamps, or slap some conversion gel on the light sources to convert it. That does dim the light noticeably, but if you still have plenty, it's fine. You set the camera white balance and white clothes appear white. If the room has no windows, then 3200K is not an issue - just adjust the camera and white is white again. As sunlight is usually brighter than artificial light, if the windows are not in shot, you can always stick multiple sheets of colour correction on them fairly simply. If they are in shot then you will be treating every pane of glass which is a big pain (sorry).

Just remember that to a camera set to 3200K, sunlight is very blue, and to a camera set to 5600K (or anything above 4300K) then tungsten lights are rather orange/yellow. If you mix tungsten and discharge indoors, it's usually best to correct the brightest ones to the others. The white balance adjustment on most cameras is happy with anything from 3000-6000K or thereabouts. The only bad circumstance is where you light the scene or subject with mixed sources of light - and that always looks odd (but sometimes 'nice' odd, for effect). Those kits look fairly useful - but it depends what light you actually want. For me - I'd probably find the Lowel ones more use - but the old Red Head kit I have doesn't get much use now.