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Tungsten in daylight


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Hey everyone. I'm working on a short student film, that's going to be shot at the end of April. The assignment says that I can only shoot OUTSIDE, on Kodak 50D 16mm film on a CP-16 camera and CAN NOT use filters, gels or lights. All I can use are flags or diffusion boards. I have everything good to go, but there are 3 ESSENTIAL scenes where the main subject is walking outside, by a large building, with big windows. The lights inside of these buildings are 3200K, so i know they're going to appear to be blue, because of the daylight stock.

 

Since i can't use color correction filters (remember, no filters), will i get a bluish haze hovering and "spilling out" around the building, or will the blue stay only inside of the building???

 

I don't mind some blue (the exterior looks warm, so it makes a nice contrast), just as long as it is not "spilling out" or creating a haze.

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Tungsten is warmer, not cooler, and if this is a day scene, I can guarantee you the light from inside the building won't overpower the daylight outside.

 

I know it's warmer, but when exposed on daylight stock, tungsten light appears blue, because the stock is balanced to 5500K, a cooler color temperature.

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You're very confused. 3200K tungsten light is orange in comaparison to 5600K daylight; Daylight is blue in comparison to tungsten light. So if you're shooting outdoors in the daytime with daylight balanced film, sunlight will appear "white," and any tungsten lights seen through windows inside the building will appear orange.

 

In a day exterior the inside lights of the building won't be anywhere near bright enough to contaminate the scene.

 

Take a digital still camera or video camera to the location, set the white balance to daylight, and shoot some test shots. You'll see what I mean.

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You're very confused. 3200K tungsten light is orange in comaparison to 5600K daylight; Daylight is blue in comparison to tungsten light. So if you're shooting outdoors in the daytime with daylight balanced film, sunlight will appear "white," and any tungsten lights seen through windows inside the building will appear orange.

 

In a day exterior the inside lights of the building won't be anywhere near bright enough to contaminate the scene.

 

Take a digital still camera or video camera to the location, set the white balance to daylight, and shoot some test shots. You'll see what I mean.

 

Thanks Michael. I know what type of light looks like what, i just had a little mix up with what tungsten light would look like under a daylight stock and vice versa. Appreciate it!

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I know it's warmer, but when exposed on daylight stock, tungsten light appears blue, because the stock is balanced to 5500K, a cooler color temperature.

 

Like Michael already suggested, you should take a videocamera to the location and test this. You will see that tungsten actually appears very warm on daylight stock (set white balance to 5600K or "outside" to see this), and that inside light "spilling out" will not be a problem at all (you most likely won't even see the insides, still assuming this is a day scene, not a night scene).

 

The thing about Kelvin is that if you think of it as a characteristic of lights, it can be a bit confusing as warmer Kelvin means cooler lights (as in cool = blue and warm = orange). But if you think of Kelvin as a characteristic for your stock, it's a bit more logical, as you can imagine that a warmer stock will warm the lights, while a cooler stock will cool the lights. Meaning that a 5600K stock will "warm up" 3200K lights, and make them look orange, while 3200K stock will cool down 5600K lights and make them look blue (in other words, the opposite of your initial assumption).

 

Hope this makes everything a bit more clear for you.

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