Correcting CT of dimmed tungstens

[Ollie Bartlett]

Hi guys,

 

Ok heres the deal. im shooting very soon in a confined space using a load of redheads and fresnels. Were trying to make it reasonably dark (in terms of lighting) with only a few touches of light dappled around the room, and so, maybe rather foolishly, ive wired a load of dimmers onto all my tungstens.

 

Unfortunately this changes the colour temperature of the light to an orangey / red hue as soon as the dimmer is in use, and so how do i then balance (video by the way) during a scenario when we also have fully powered tungstens in use? should i use the manual balance, or should i try to correct the output of the dimmed lights using gels (and if so which), so i get less power but the same CT?

 

Of course saying all this, as fate would predict ive also just found a bunch of lower power lamps in a box. should i forget about the whole dimmer situation and just change lamps when i need?

 

As with all my topics, confusion is rife, but many thanks to anyone that replies.

 

Ollie Bartlett

[Dan Salzmann]

There are metal wire mesh scrims that reduce the amount of light without changing either the colour temp or the spread of the beam.

There is also the option of neutral density gels that do the same however some argue that they are not completely neutral in terms of colour. Close enough for me though.

Then if you have the option of lamping down to a lower wattage that's good but not always possible unfortunately.

[chris kempinski]

either scrim down your redheads. or bring in a fill and bring your f stop down, then bring up you blacks in post.

if you are talking about practicals like lamps seen on film, buy smaller bulbs like 15w instead of 60s.