Avoidin the green tint in Kinoflows !!!

[Tim O'Connor]

A color temperature meter is really only valid for things that have a Planckian distribution of energy, like sunlight and tungsten lamps.

 

For a much cheaper way to see if you have a green spike, all you really need is a junk DVD or CD. Use it to diffract the light out into individual wavelengths, just like a prism does. Look at an incandescent, you'll get a smooth spread from red to blue-violet. But look at an ordinary flourescent, and you'll have dark gaps and a green spike. Keep one in your meter kit.

-- J.S.

 

 

Thanks, McGyver.

 

 

No kidding, that is a cool tip!

 

Oh my gosh, I just grabbed a DVD and put it under the incandescent 100W bulb next to me and

there's a rainbow in there! I don't have any flourescents here but I think that I'm going to take the

DVD down to the local gas station variety store and check it out.

 

Thanks, John. This reminds me of all the cool stuff I loved about how guys worked on cars when I

grew up. For example, before computers, they would bend a matchbook cover and sit it on a

valve cover and adjust the carburetor mixture screws until the matchbook cover no longer wobbled.

 

Probably wasn't the best tuning as far as emissions (hence the locked fuel mixture screws that came

out) but it was cool.

[Rebecca Pryce]

A color temperature meter is really only valid for things that have a Planckian distribution of energy, like sunlight and tungsten lamps.

 

For a much cheaper way to see if you have a green spike, all you really need is a junk DVD or CD. Use it to diffract the light out into individual wavelengths, just like a prism does. Look at an incandescent, you'll get a smooth spread from red to blue-violet. But look at an ordinary flourescent, and you'll have dark gaps and a green spike. Keep one in your meter kit.

-- J.S.

 

 

My students would love this trick...is this image what you are referring to? I can see dark gaps in the middle of a spectrum if I move it underneath the light, but no green spike at the same time. It's either or.