Re: Color Meter

[ectobuilder]

Re: Color Meter

If I wanted to measure the color temperature of a wall that has a spot light falling onto it. Do I place the color meter TOWARDS the wall or TOWARDS the Spot Light?

 

[Cool Lights]

I guess if I was interested primarily in the bounce off a wall, I would aim at the spot on the wall where the light fell. The wall may indeed tint the light so that's important to know. If I was primarily interested in the color temp of the light itself, I would aim at the light source.

 

[unadog]

If your goal is to have the wall look "correct" in your image - have the "right" color, you would measure the color temperature of teh light.

If your goal was to have the wall look "grey" in your image - to "balance out" any color cast that the wall has, you would measure the wall. But then anything else that you put in front of the wall will look way off.

The goal is almost always the first, so you almost always measure the light. (This is the same as what Cool Lights said above, just phrased a little differently.)

Sometimes you want to know what "color" something is. Then you measure it using a known lighting condition, so that you can tell someone else the RGB values, or a Pantone color, etc.

But we assume that you are using the meter in reference to a camera? And that you want to set the color temperature of the light into the camera, so that it reproduces colors accurately.

I hope that helps!

best,
Michael