White Balance Lighting Question

NorBro

NorBro

Major Contributor
I know very little about lighting.

I recently picked up some variable color temperature LED lights and have been testing them in my office (with no other light sources).

This may sound silly, but depending on my camera's white balance or the color temperature of the lights, I don't have the WB and the CT matching.

During testing, I'll have a bunch of my lights at 3200-3400K, but will have the white balance at 4000-4500K...or the lights will be warmer while the camera is cooler. And other minor variations.

Is this normal in professional lighting? Are there any certain rules to follow? Because I am lighting it based on what I think looks good on the calibrated monitor next to me in the room.

Thank you.
 
I'm not sure I follow what you're experiencing. In the end what matters most is if it looks right, you don't have to be mislead by numbers and such. But I don't understand what the issue you're having is. Is it just that the supposed color temperature of the LED's looks off when you have the same color temperature dialed in on your camera?
 
Thank you...so I was just wondering for my own curiosity, if I use my lights at 3200K inside a room with no other lighting, should my camera be at 3200K? Is that common practice? (Possibly wondering if my LED lights color temperature dial is not accurate).

Are there times when the camera and the lights are at different temperatures?
 
If a light source's published colour temperature just required the camera to be set at the same figure, then auto white balance wouldn't have a function. It's simply the most likely setting for when you have no chance to do it properly. In a white painted room with no other colours apart from white, then it should be nearly the same, but if the room the light is in has any coloured surfaces, walls, carpets, furniture etc, then your 3200 warmish setting can be messed up by a light blue wall. Add to this the fact that so many LED sources only mimic, not produce, their stated colour temperature, it all goes wrong. In theatre lighting where I do a lot of my work, they now have a range of gel to use on white LED sources to make their output produce common colours. Primary red, for example. Lee 106. A very popular colour, but if it is put on a white 3200 LED source it is NOT the same colour beam as the 3200 tungsten laps. So they have had to produce a different red gel that on the LED enables it to match. Clearly, 3200K doesn't really mean very much! Just treat 3200 as warm white, and 5600 as 'daylight' and then let the camera adjust it. If you can't, it's only a tweak in post, but LED light is just different to tungsten, or the sun.
 
Moseph said:
I'm not sure I follow what you're experiencing. In the end what matters most is if it looks right, you don't have to be mislead by numbers and such. But I don't understand what the issue you're having is. Is it just that the supposed color temperature of the LED's looks off when you have the same color temperature dialed in on your camera?
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I'm gonna disagree with this a bit, because it matters WHAT looks right. If you're just going off the camera's lcd, you're gonna have a bad time. Even on something that's color accurate, there are still outside influences that can affect your eye.

I'd shoot some tests, but for the most part if I set my lights to 3200k and my wb to 3200k I'm gonna be pretty assured that I'm gonna get a correct color balance, or at least as close as is reasonable. As has been mentioned, different reflective surfaces can obviously change the light, but that's natural.

Note that this is true of quality lights. I have no idea what's going to happen with cheap chinese knock-off lights. I suspect those will be all over the place. But then, if those are what you're using, I can't imagine it's THAT critical for completely perfect white balance for the project.
 
You could always do manual white balance under your lighting setup for a baseline, and then adjust in-camera color temp from there if desired, rather than relying on matching numbers between the stated color temp of the lights and dialed-in color temp of the camera. Of course, to do that, you'll want to be watching on a calibrated monitor.
 
As has been mentioned before ... I think ... I'd first test the footage - presuming some constant conditions can be achieved, without, let's say, the sun blasting through a window - and see what 3200 looks like when the WB is at 3200. And then do the same at 5400. By then, you'd have an idea how your camera works with your lights and camera set exactly as specified. This will give you a solid staring point.

Then, to achieve a look that you might want from a specific scene, you essentially have an unlimited choice of settings in both the lights and the camera, not to mention post.
 
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