Mixing tungsten and daylight

Ramiro Teran · May 10, 2009

Hello guys,

I'm pretty new on this, i'm learning.

I'll be shooting in a house that has a lot oh daylight, and I only have tungsten lights, soft boxes etc.

How do you think it'll look if i mix them?

If I can get away with it I'll do it, if is gonna look bad rather not.

I'll be shooting with Sony pmw ex1 1920.1080 24fps

Thanks in advance !

Ramiro

Edited May 10, 2009 by Ramiro Teran

Steve McBride · May 10, 2009

Get different strengths of CTB to gel the lights with. Mixing tungsten and daylight can look good as long as it isn't too much. Set your white balance to the daylight and then start gelling your lights.

You probably want full CTB on your key light and then maybe like half and quarter on your practicals.

Get on the set before the shoot and test out how it will look, that will save you a lot of time on the day of the shoot in trying to get the look right.

David Rakoczy · May 10, 2009

..or gel the windows with CTO or a combo of NDCTO and shoot tungsten... or mix a variation of each.. putting gels on one or the other... or both.

The real question is what do you want it to look, feel like? That is your starting point.

Ramiro Teran · May 10, 2009

Than you Steve!, I'll do that

Ramiro Teran · May 10, 2009

..or gel the windows with CTO or a combo of NDCTO and shoot tungsten... or mix a variation of each.. putting gels on one or the other... or both.

The real question is what do you want it to look, feel like? That is your starting point.

Thanks David !

The windows are too high, so I'll gel the lights.

David Rakoczy · May 10, 2009

Ramiro,

Please do not take this the wrong way, but I am amazed at how many Lighting, Film Stock, Camera Choice, Lens & Filter questions are posted without any detail as to the 'Look' that is trying to be achieved. It seems to me the first sentence should be.. "I am trying to get a look like...." "here is what I am using or here is what is available".. from there you can really get some assistance.

Maybe beginners are simply after a clean normally exposed, great looking image.. and will play with various looks in telecine or in post... or they are having difficulty describing the look.. they should state that. It all starts with .. What do you want it to look, feel like? Everything else is meaningless and you are not furthering your craft without addressing that first. After all, we are to previsualize.. then paint with our tools that which we wanted.. to the closest of our ability. Sometimes we nail it.. sometimes we learn a hard lesson.. either way we learn and begin to master or craft instead of being a slave to it. Ramiro, you are not alone... I see this all the time and many times when asked "what do you want it to look, feel like?'... there is no answer.

I just thought I would express my observation.

JD Hartman · May 10, 2009

You probably want full CTB on your key light and then maybe like half and quarter on your practicals.

If your going to put full CTB on any tungsten light, you're going to lose about 2/3 of its output. If this is your "key", the ouput will be about the same as having it turned off. Daylight isn't consistantly the color temperature throught the day. Mixed color temp. is okay as long as you like the look. If the light from the windows isn't overpowering the artifical light inside, you'll probably be fine with 1/2 CTB. Put some ND on the windows, use the curtains or sheers to filter down the intensity of the sun.

Ramiro Teran · May 10, 2009

Ramiro,

Please do not take this the wrong way, but I am amazed at how many Lighting, Film Stock, Camera Choice, Lens & Filter questions are posted without any detail as to the 'Look' that is trying to be achieved. It seems to me the first sentence should be.. "I am trying to get a look like...." "here is what I am using or here is what is available".. from there you can really get some assistance.

Maybe beginners are simply after a clean normally exposed, great looking image.. and will play with various looks in telecine or in post... or they are having difficulty describing the look.. they should state that. It all starts with .. What do you want it to look, feel like? Everything else is meaningless and you are not furthering your craft without addressing that first. After all, we are to previsualize.. then paint with our tools that which we wanted.. to the closest of our ability. Sometime we nail it.. sometimes we learn a hard lesson.. either way we learn and begin to master or craft instead of being a slave to it. Ramiro, you are not alone... I see this all the time and many times when asked "what do you want it to look, feel like?'... there is no answer.

I just thought I would express my observation.

David,

You are absolutely right, forgot to answer that, and is actually the point.It's also not easy to respond, since I think I would need some knowledge in order to explain the look I

want.

I'm an actor and work in soapoperas. well that's exactly what I don't want, perfect light.

I'd like to get somehow film look, not to much light,i like shadows, the house is big, so I can play a lot with DOF.

I'd like to get as close as possible to the final look, trying to avoid manipulating digital files in post,I use Vegas 8.0(same principle with digital audio(I use protools),when you record try to get as close as you can to final mix,eq and comp before convertion)

But I have the chance to go to the house one whole day before the shooting and try different lighting situations.

So if I get the gels and put them on the lights they would somehow get close to daylight right?

Thanks for your time David !!

Ramiro

David Mullen ASC · May 10, 2009

It's pretty simple: in daylight balance, tungsten reads as orange light. And in tungsten balance, daylight reads as blue light.

So if you are in a daylit room, the question is whether you want your tungsten lights to read orange, and how orange, or do you want them completely corrected to daylight.

You could, for example, use a half-correction (Half Blue, aka 1/2 CTB) and then the tungsten light will read as half-orange, which may be nice to create a warm late-afternoon effect. You could even leave them uncorrected for an orangey sunset effect.

The biggest problem you are going to find is that the full blue correction gel on a tungsten light kills two-stops of intensity. Which is why it's more power efficient to use daylight balanced lighting (HMI's, daylight fluorescents, LED's.)