What gel to use to simulate moonlight
 

Hi, Just a quick question! What gel would you suggest I use to put infront of a tungsten light to make it appear to be moonlight?

Moonlight is reflected sunlight, so Full CTB is usually what you would want to try. Try balancing your camera between tungsten and daylight so tungsten looks a bit amber and the CTB (color temperature blue) looks a bit blue. You could put half CTB in front of a light and balance to a white card lit by that. When you put the full CTB up, that light will look blue and ungelled tungsten will look amber.

There are many interpretations of the color of moonlight, depending on the type of project--a stylized one may use a deeper blue. It's a bit "old school" (i.e. '80's) to go super saturated blue. Half blue will generally "sell" as moonlight if you want to get the greatest output from your lights.

Thanks for your help, I will get a both a full CTB and a half CTB and work with them until I get what I'm looking for.

There are also lots of options for moonlight gels. Some people like a little more towards a "steel blue", and both Lee and Rosco actually make a "moonlight blue" gel. CTB is a great place to start, and if you want to change the look from there, you will have lots to work with.

The tradition of blue for moonlight comes from the nature of our eyes at moonlight illumination levels. The blue-sensitive cones in our eyes can see at just slightly lower illumination than the red and green hence moonlight can take on a slight blue cast to our naked sight.

I try a bit more subtle process with my moonlight resulting in a more silvery look:

on set:

o 1/2CTB on "moonlight" tungsten instruments or 1/2CTO on "moonlight" HMI's

o 1/4CTB in front of white card lit only by "moonlight" source

in post:

o with a secondary color-corrector, select "moonlight" blues and desaturate 25-50% or to taste