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Shooting with Flourescents


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Hey guys,

 

I am going to be shooting a short in a convenience store, with lots of practical flourescents. I am going to be shooting HDV 1080i/60i. I was wondering if anyone had any tips for shooting under these conditions. I was going to white balance to the flourescents to try to minimize the "green". Anyone know if I will have trouble with flicker? Thanks.

 

-ymkulkarni

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Hey guys,

 

I am going to be shooting a short in a convenience store, with lots of practical flourescents. I am going to be shooting HDV 1080i/60i. I was wondering if anyone had any tips for shooting under these conditions. I was going to white balance to the flourescents to try to minimize the "green". Anyone know if I will have trouble with flicker? Thanks.

 

-ymkulkarni

 

If you use any lights besides what comes with the store, you'll need to gel them with a 1/4-1/2 green depending on how old the flourescents are. Newer lamps are much closer to the 5600k mark. also, windows will be an issue if you white balence to the flourescents. If there is a lot of window light, consider puting a 1/4 blue on the florescents to match the outside light comming in.

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At 60i you should have no troubles with flicker. If you do, make sure your shutter is turned off. If budget allows you can rent some Kino Flo tubes to replace the ones in the unit, that way you won't have to worry about a green cast or matching your lights or matching to window.

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Yashad,

 

check out the tubes, there is usually a three digit number on there. 835, 550 etc. This has to do with the colour. The first is the CRI (Colour Rendering Index), an indication how bad the the SPD (Spectral Power Distribution) is anything 8 and nine is quite good, but chances are you're dealing with a 5 or 6 for cheap tubes.

 

The last to figures are the white point, so in the above exampe it's CRI8, 3500K and CRI5, 5500K.

 

Descent tubes are not expensive (~£7/$10 for 4foot T8) so you may want to consider re-fitting the shop for your shoot. Check out these bad boys: Full Spectrum Flourescents

 

These ones are good enough that you find colour labs, retouching facilities etc fitted with them!

 

regards,

Wolfgang

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Yashad,

 

check out the tubes, there is usually a three digit number on there. 835, 550 etc. This has to do with the colour. The first is the CRI (Colour Rendering Index), an indication how bad the the SPD (Spectral Power Distribution) is anything 8 and nine is quite good, but chances are you're dealing with a 5 or 6 for cheap tubes.

 

The last two figures are the white point, so in the above exampe it's

 

835 : CRI = 8, whitepoint = 3500K and

550 : CRI = 5, whitepoint = 5500K.

 

Descent tubes are not expensive (~£7/$10 for 4foot T8) so you may want to consider re-fitting the shop for your shoot. Check out these bad boys: Full Spectrum Flourescents

 

These ones are good enough that you find colour labs, retouching facilities etc fitted with them!

 

regards,

Wolfgang

Edited by wolfgang haak
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Yashad,

 

check out the tubes, there is usually a three digit number on there. 835, 550 etc. This has to do with the colour. The first is the CRI (Colour Rendering Index), an indication how bad the the SPD (Spectral Power Distribution) is anything 8 and nine is quite good, but chances are you're dealing with a 5 or 6 for cheap tubes.

 

The last to figures are the white point, so in the above exampe it's CRI8, 3500K and CRI5, 5500K.

 

Descent tubes are not expensive (~£7/$10 for 4foot T8) so you may want to consider re-fitting the shop for your shoot. Check out these bad boys: Full Spectrum Flourescents

 

These ones are good enough that you find colour labs, retouching facilities etc fitted with them!

 

regards,

Wolfgang

 

Great info and link, Wolfgang. Thanks.

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I can back up the endorsement of the company Full Spectrum Solutions. They're great and the bulbs (BlueMax) are the ones you're looking for. CRI is 93 but I've noticed that even with that high CRI, I'm still adding 1/4 minus green and 1/4 CTB to get them to match my HMI's. I wouldn't sweat the flicker. I've never seen it with these bulbs. Though I have noticed a lot of flo-flicker lately in movies. Seems like either HD cameras aren't handling it well or people just aren't changing out the practical flos anymore. Either way it's getting a lot more common. Along with letting tungsten practicals clip out to pure white. Something else that's annoying and seems sloppy.

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