Improve Your Lighting Using Colour Temperature - Lighting with Colour Part 1

color can be an integral component to lighting an image and in this short course we'll take a look at how we can utilize color temperature and white balance to motivate and replicate both natural and artificial light realistically and creatively [Music] as well as using rgb lighting to expand upon these skills [Music] color temperature is measured using the kelvin scale with warmer temperatures at the lower end of the scale and cooler temperatures at the higher end both naturally occurring and artificial lighting fit into this scale and in photography or cinematography you're likely to be using daylight or tungsten lighting daylight lighting sits around the same temperature as midday sun around 5600 kelvin whereas tungsten lighting sits closer to an incandescent or halogen household bulb around 3200 kelvin generally this means that if we want our image to take place in daylight we use a daylight balanced light [Music] if we want our image to take place in a lit environment indoors at night we use a tungsten balanced light now these two color temperatures are easy enough for our eyes to adjust to but cameras don't see light and color the same way we do and their white balance needs to be calibrated to match the color temperature that's lighting the scene most everyday cameras do this automatically but when we want to take full control of the color in our image we need to set the white balance manually this can be done in camera or in post-production if the shot has been captured in a raw format [Music] now a camera's white balance is also set using the kelvin scale although it can be a little confusing at first setting the lower temperatures in camera cooled down the image whilst higher temperatures warm it up which is the opposite to what we know about the kelvin scale when relating to our light sources an easy way to look at this is that our camera is compensating for the color temperature of the light in the scene neutralizing it and allowing the colors in our shot to look more natural the warmer the light on the kelvin scale our camera needs to cool down the image to match it the colder the light on the kelvin scale our camera needs to warm up the image to match it so we could shoot with either a daylight balance light or a tungsten one but once our white balance is set in camera to match the light source in the scene the image is going to look exactly the same regardless of the color temperature of light used this gives us the base for a neutral image but if we want to create different looks we can uncouple our camera's white balance from the temperature of the light in the scene using higher kelvin ratings than our light source to add more warmth or lower kelvin ratings to cool down the image our white balance actually allows us to creatively represent any time of day or lighting situation we want [Music] but if we can just balance our camera to whatever temperature lights we're shooting with and even warm up and cool down our image what's the point in even having two different temperatures of light in our lighting fixtures to begin with well without anything else in the shot to demonstrate where our light is coming from we don't always have a clear idea of what the light in the scene is supposed to be representing [Music] how about we turn on this lamp in the background with the intention to make our shot into a warm interior night scene with the lamp on we've clued our audience visually into what could be an element that is helping to light the scene a motivation for the light on our subject but something isn't quite right there's a discrepancy between the warmth of the lamp and the more neutral temperature of the light on our subject and seen [Music] this is because we used our daylight lighting fixture to light the scene our camera is white balanced to daylight to compensate for this but because we now have an additional source of light in the scene the incandescent lamp we are also adding warmth to it as a side effect of white balancing to our daylight source [Music] if we balance to the lamp instead turning our camera's white balance down to 3200 kelvin our lamp now looks more neutral but we've also cooled down the daylight balanced light that's lighting the scene making this discrepancy between color temperatures even more apparent let's switch out our daylight balance light for our tungsten balanced light [Music] now that our lamp and light source are matching at 3200 kelvin we have a more neutrally balanced image now with our matching temperatures we can raise our camera's white balance and add more overall warmth into the image without any deviation in temperature between our lamp and the light on our subject achieving our originally intended look of a warm interior night scene with our lamp motivating the light that is falling onto our subject and scene let's change up our shot and have it lit by window light as we're now working with daylight from the window we'll white balance our camera toward daylight so now rather than the lamp we'd like our lighting to be motivated by the window in the scene the daylight coming through is already giving a nice edge light on our subject but overall the shot is quite dark and we'd like it to look like the window is extending further around the room and lighting our subject fully so we'll add in our own light but this doesn't look correct and you've probably guessed why this is we use the tungsten light source to light our subject meaning we once again have these two conflicting colour temperatures in our scene with no way to find a proper white balance for the image in our camera swap out our tungsten light for our daylight balanced light and now our window and light source match whatever white balance we choose now can be used creatively to alter the look of our shot or even represent different times of day [Music] you can watch the entire 5 part series now with no weight featuring an exclusive section not available on youtube by downloading the whole 46 minute mini court from rob ellis cinematography dot com forward slash downloads for just 15 pounds you can also stream the whole tutorial by becoming a patron in part two we'll take a look at how understanding the relationship between the qualities of your lighting along with exposure can help you to use color temperature and white balance to creatively and realistically represent lighting situations we see in real life the lighting with color series is color graded using dehancer use my code rob ellis to get 10 off support my channel on patreon and get extra lighting and shoot breakdowns along with early ad-free youtube videos i use music from audio socket in my videos click my referral link in the video description and use the code rob ellis when you sign up for a free month of the best and most diverse range of stock music available use my code rob ellis over at xyro to get up to 72 off your website or storefront with three extra months free along with a custom domain for a year i use art grid for stock footage get an extra two months free when you sign up using the link in the video description [Music]

Channel: Rob Ellis

Views: 36,601

Keywords: cinema, cinematography, film, filmmaking, filmmaker, video, videography, color grade, colour grade, colour grading, color grading, tutorial, davinci resolve, lighting, how to, blackmagic, bmpcc, bmpcc4k, blackmagic pocket, cinematic, moody, cinematic tips, dehancer, bmpcc6k, bmpcc6k pro, color temperature, white balance, lighting with color, rob ellis, fix lighting

Id: AlVWC_qycVw

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 04 2022