Fat-Whillie
New member
snowskate said:
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Okay here we go. Being a Lighting Designer (for theatre) and an advanced amateur photographer, color temp has always been very important to critical for me. Since I now have a very "healthy" addiction to auto detailing
I needed better lighting for the Salon (garage). IMHO, color temp. need not factor into utility lighting. What is very important is Lumens (need lots) and even distribution. Color temp. is important if you are trying to match colors, as in being an auto painter. Check out how lighting is arranged in a paint booth (top and side lights). Here is a short explanation on color temps.Color temperature, expressed on the Kelvin scale (K), is the color appearance of the lamp itself and the light it produces.
According to the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), color temperature is "the absolute temperature of a blackbody radiator having a chromaticity equal to that of the light source."
Imagine a block of steel that is steadily heated until it glows first orange, then yellow and so on until it becomes blue or bluish-white. At any time during the heating, we could measure the temperature of the metal in Kelvins (Celsius + 273) and assign that value to the color being produced, resulting in a "color temperature." Computer software performs this function for today's lamps, giving them a color temperature rating found in the manufacturers' literature.
For incandescent lamps, the color temperature is a "true" value; for fluorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, the value is approximate and is therefore called correlated color temperature. In the industry, both terms - - color temperature and correlated color temperature - - are often used interchangeably. The color temperature of lamps makes them visually "warm," "neutral" or "cool" light sources.
Lamps with a lower color temperature (3500K or less) have a warm or red-yellow/orangish-white appearance. The light is saturated in red and orange wavelengths, bringing out warmer object colors such as red and orange more richly.
Lamps with a mid-range color temperature (3500K to 4000K) have a neutral or white appearance. The light is more balanced in its color wavelengths.
Lamps with a higher color temperature (4000K or higher) have a cool or bluish-white appearance. Summer sunlight has a very cool appearance at about 5500K. The light is saturated in green and blue wavelengths, bringing out cooler object colors such as green and blue more richly.
But to each his/her own. P.S. I use all 5500K lamps, great color rendering and easy on the eyes (Fluorescent lights in higher color temps tend to create eye strain and fatigue). Today's digital cameras have a white balance setting for it, and pictures look great. As always do your final pics in the sun to show off the perfection.
My $.02, Thanks
