question about white balancing

[Cees Mutsaers]

When you want to shoot an interview indoors using an on-cam LED light with tungsten gel do you have to white balance the cam ?
It seems strange for me since the effect of the gel (3200 K) will be voided if you do a white balance (on white surface), am i right or not ?

 

[Razz16mm]

White balance calibration is necessary to match the camera to the color spectrum of your light for accurate neutral color. The natural uncorrected white balance for silicon sensors is around 5000K color temp. Tungsten is 2750 to 3200K. Outdoor daylight conditions can range from 4000K to 10000k depending.
You should do a manual white balance once for each scene or lighting setup and don't redo it unless the nature of the light changes significantly.

If you white balance to an ungeled daylight balanced LED light, then add the orange tungsten filter, your colors will shift toward very orange/red without rebalancing. Is that what you want?

It is usually better to shoot with a corrected neutral white balance and grade for minor color changes in post to get the look you want.

 

[legrevedotcom]

Shoot neutral... go warm in post. If you shoot warm and you change your mind and want a more neutral or cool look, you would have lost a lot of color info in the warm shot.

 

[Cees Mutsaers]

Probably I did not formulate my question well, English is not my native language. If you use a 3200 K gel (Tungsten) and you than white balance the camera what is the point of using a 3200 K gel since during white balancing you tell the camera that the yellow light on a white surface should be white !!!

White balance calibration is necessary to match the camera to the color spectrum of your light for accurate neutral color. The natural uncorrected white balance for silicon sensors is around 5000K color temp. Tungsten is 2750 to 3200K. Outdoor daylight conditions can range from 4000K to 10000k depending.
You should do a manual white balance once for each scene or lighting setup and don't redo it unless the nature of the light changes significantly.

If you white balance to an ungeled daylight balanced LED light, then add the orange tungsten filter, your colors will shift toward very orange/red without rebalancing. Is that what you want?

It is usually better to shoot with a corrected neutral white balance and grade for minor color changes in post to get the look you want.

 

[TheDingo]

If you use a 3200 K gel (Tungsten) and you than white balance the camera what is the point of using a 3200 K gel since during white balancing you tell the camera that the yellow light on a white surface should be white !!!

1- You always white balance to your light source, no matter what the color temperature is, if you want to record a neutral colored image. ( i.e. no warm or cool color cast )

2- Match the color balance of the other lights in the room if you want your lights and the background to record as a neutral colored image. ( i.e. use tungsten lights with other tungsten lights, use daylight lights when shooting with daylight through a window or outside )

 

[gonzo_entertainment]

Probably I did not formulate my question well, English is not my native language. If you use a 3200 K gel (Tungsten) and you than white balance the camera what is the point of using a 3200 K gel since during white balancing you tell the camera that the yellow light on a white surface should be white !!!

There would be no reason to put the gel on UNLESS you needed to mix it with other sources. If there is a tungsten practical lamp on the table in the rear of the shot, you balance to tungsten (so the practical looks right) then gel the LED so it doesn't look blue.

 

[MikeFunktastic]

There would be no reason to put the gel on UNLESS you needed to mix it with other sources. If there is a tungsten practical lamp on the table in the rear of the shot, you balance to tungsten (so the practical looks right) then gel the LED so it doesn't look blue.

On a related question -- am I correct to assume that you would never want to mix different Kelvin temps? As in uncorrected tungsten with LED and vice versa

 

[wgzn]

am I correct to assume that you would never want to mix different Kelvin temps? As in uncorrected tungsten with LED and vice versa

in general yeah. thats a good practice. but there are times when you want the kick of a different temp.

i've shot a few interviews where id wb for the key lights then use another temp for hairlight, just to add interest.