Stanley Cup & Mixing 5600k & 3200k

[Tim Polster]

Hello,

I thought I would post this and see if anybody else saw this.

I was watching the Stanley Cup hockey game on Sunday Night and the inbetween period commentators had a strange lighting setup.

They showed the lighting setup from across the rink before they went to the feed.

The had the commentators with their back to the ice rink. The lighting was three banks of 5600k flos along with some 3200k freznels bounced off of the ceiling for overall fill.

The cameras were balanced to 5600k as the white ice in the far background was yellow!

I wonder why mixed sources when the ice turned out yellow in the end anyway?

Just thought I would post and get your thoughts...

[Bill Davis]

You sure the yellow over the ice wasn't from the huge industrial fixtures that are often used in commercial settings like ice rinks. Often, that's old style sodium vapor or other lights that are were chosen for their energy efficiency rather than their color values.

Long after the cameras are gone, the rink operator has to cover the electric bill.

Just a suspicion.

[Tim Polster]

Well the ice looked white during the game.

I just don't understand why they mixed color temperatures and made the ice and the stands have a yellow tint.

One would think they would start with the ice being white and build the setup from there.

[Richard Andrewski]

Maybe just laziness or carelessness is what I would think because its pretty unusual for pros to make such a mistake.

[Bill Davis]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

Well the ice looked white during the game.

>I just don't understand why they mixed color temperatures and made the >ice and the stands have a yellow tint.

>One would think they would start with the ice being white and build the >setup from there.

This is why a dependable monitor is so very important when you're shooting in the field.

The truth is that even bad lighting will often look just fine to the human eye. The human eye/brain combination "corrects" all sorts of lighting automatically - creating the perception of colors that are accurate - even when the lighting is way off.

Cameras aren't nearly as sophisticated.

If I arrived to shoot in an ice rink, and my monitor told me that the lighting had shifted to yellow/amber like from old sodium vapor fixtures, I'd need to have the right gel to correct my tungsten gear or color balanced fluors - to match the ice rink lights.

And I don't carry that particular gel stock typically since those kind of sodium vapor lights aren't common except in older, large industrial settings, something I rarely shoot in these days.

(I actually don't even remember the right color correction gels for this kind of situation, I'd have to look it up)

This is a great example of why location scouting is so important.

If you know the lighting is weird, you can make sure you have what I need to fix it. Or at least bring along a bunch of gels that you think will get you close.

FWIW