Color Correcting Tungsten Balanced Film to Daylight in DaVinci Resolve - 16mm

[Owen A. Davies]

I'll be shooting a 16mm project exclusively on 500T soon and had planned to simply correct the color balance to daylight in DaVinci Resolve. Whilst I do have experience with color grading 16mm film in DaVinci, I don't have very much experience at all correcting one stock of film to an opposite color balance. Does anyone here who has any experience in this field have any advice, tips, guides, or steps they'd generally take in doing so? Thank you!

[Brett Allbritton]

Color correcting the bluish color cast isn't that different from color correcting any other footage. You'll just need to add back some warmth across the whole image.

The best practice is to shoot a grey card or color chart in neutral light for your scene, then use that shot as a reference when you do your color correction. It makes everything much easier.

You also could just use an 85 filter for your outside shots. Some cinematographers prefer to correct in post for various reasons, but I like to get everything as close to my desired final image as I can while shooting. It's also just generally quicker to put an 85 filter on my camera than it is to correct in the grade, especially if I've forgotten to shoot a color chart.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Brett Allbritton
Too wordy.