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Response to What is a fair price for the XL1?

from Peter Wardley-Repen (pwr@builth-hs.powys.sch.uk)
Hi Larry!

Can't comment on prices as I'm in the UK, but here's my two pence worth on lighting:

Most, if not all, cameras, are optimised for tungsten light. The reason for this is that daylight is usually brighter than indoor light, and as you're going to have to put in a filter (and thus cut down the amount of light getting to the imaging chips or the film) to convert from one to the other, it makes sense to use the filter on the brighter light source. So, most cameras are optimised for tungsten light and use a filter in the light path, or some form of electronic compensation, for daylight.

The only reason for using conversion gels on tungsten lights is to match them to daylight - for instance if the room you're shooting in has a window with light coming in through it. The camera can only be properly balanced for one type of light at a time, so you have to either match the tungsten lights to the daylight and set the camera for daylight, or vice versa; put orange gels over the windows and set the camera for tungsten light.

For all the reasons I gave at the beginning, the latter option is preferable, but may not be practical - the windows may be too big, or you may be fifty floors up(!). So most times, you'll be gelling the lights, but be aware that you lose about a stop from each light if you use full blue gels. My solution is to set the camera for daylight and use half blue gels on the lights. That way, you don't lose too much of your lights (which are fighting to keep up with the daylight anyway) and the lit parts of the picture have a not-too-unpleasant warmth about them.

The other solution, of course, is to avoid shooting with mixed light sources.

By the way, if you come accross a situation involving flourescent lights, all bets are off! These beasties are notorious for their weird colours, and in this case, you'll just have to do a manual white balance off a white card (or ideally, a Kodak gray card) and hope for the best. If you actually shoot a minute or so of the card itself, you have a reference for any colour correction in post-production.

Hope this helps.

Peter

(posted 9185 days ago)

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