View Full Version : light color temperature question


Jeremy Borton
November 18th, 2013, 01:31 PM
Hello,

I was on a shoot this morning in an operating room and I was forced to use available lighting. I white balanced my camera to the available light which appeared to be a mix of Flourescent and tungsten bulbs. When I started recording I noticed my monitor would roll between cool and warm color temperature, which is something I have honestly never seen before. It was almost as if it would just dissolve through cool and warm.

I assume it was because of the mix but I was on manual and white balanced to the room. Did I miss something? Could someone explain this to me?

Also I switched angles and the second angle I shot in the same exact room looked fine. I was just shooting some B-roll to cover about 3 seconds of the video so I'm good in the end, but I film for a hospital and obviously can't risk this happening again.

Any advice is very much appreciated.

I shoot on a old Sony Z1U shooting HDV on mini DV tape.

Thank you,

Jeremy

Chris Medico
November 18th, 2013, 01:42 PM
What you are describing is from a non continuous light source.

Did you by chance change your shutter speed between shots?

Jeremy Borton
November 18th, 2013, 02:15 PM
Hi Chris,

I did not. That was the weird part, I simply changed angle. Would changing shutter speeds have fixed this? I fully expected once I changed angles to have to trouble shoot and adjusting shutter speeds probably would have been my second guess after triple checking to make sure I was not somehow on auto and the camera was just confused on what lighting to use.Since it fixed my problem I just shot a little extra to cover the shot.

It's just something I haven't come across so I'm sure I just put it out of my mind.

Chris Medico
November 18th, 2013, 02:23 PM
Interesting... Changing angle shouldn't have made a difference unless it caused a major shift in lighting dominance.

I still suspect it is from non continuous lighting. Funny things can happen when you are dealing with that stuff. I had fun with some last night in a gym with Metal Halide lighting. I got dramatic color shifts when using high shutter speeds shooing some badminton.

David Barnett
November 18th, 2013, 05:31 PM
I know you say you shot in manual mode but could your iris/exposure have been set to exposure? I think that essentially sets the aperature to auto, and maybe it was fluctuating in between the two.