Anyone know what daylight balanced bulbs means?

[johnneumann]

A few years ago, I bought a hundred or so 13w ecobulbs at a bulk auction ... the plain old cheapie ecobulbs you might get at a dollar store.

I just saw a great youtube video where a guy built himself a softbox for recording interviews with the back panel of the box holding five ... count 'em ... *five* mounted sockets for bulbs.

He put in five ecobulbs, built a homemade softbox around it with some fabric on the front, and had a cool-running softbox for just a few bucks. (That was the point of the video. That five ecobulbs still run cool.)

I don't know anything about light spectrum. What will five cheapie ecobulbs look like on a caucasian face during a seated interview? I read a forum entry and someone said that daylight balanced ecobulbs are the only way to go. Is there really such a big difference?

Will my videos looks amateurish if I us regular ecobulbs instead of daylight balanced ecobulbs? (I already own a hundred of these non-daylight bulbs. I'd like to use them up, if possible.)

-JOHN

ps. I've googled "daylight balanced ecobulb comparison" and came up with nothing. It would be great to see some side by side photos, even though I'm working with video.

[TimKennelly]

John,

Shooting under cheap fluorescent lighting is a recipe for disaster and headache, especially for someone who doesn't understand lighting.

Unbalanced fluorescent lighting will shade everything to green (sometimes blue) which makes skin look sick and doesn't enhance anything else either.

Daylight balanced bulbs are designed to compensate for this, but do so with mixed results depending on the actual bulb.

Then there is flicker which is inherent in the gas technology of fluorescent lighting which could be a significant issue if you are shooting with any of the newer technology CMOS chip cameras.

These things can be dealt with using gels, white balancing, shutter speeds, etc., but is not for the neophyte.

[johnneumann]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the reply. I own a 90's Sony PD150, so I don't suspect I've got those CMOS chips you're talking about, whatever they are.

I've never done anything with my cam other than shoot on automatic. Honestly, I don't know how anything works other than zoom and on/off. That's worked for me for all these years.

Are you saying that if I learn how to adjust the white balance, that I can compensate for these cheapie ecobulbs?

I would be perfectly happy with that solution. I've got to learn this stuff sometime, and having a reason to learn it is that much easier.

So adjusting the white balance will take even these crummy cheap ecobulbs and make my headshot videos look good?

(I'm already going to be softbox'ing these lights, which cuts down on the amount of light coming through. I'd prefer to not further dim the thing with gels.)

-JOHN

[TimKennelly]

John,

Your PD150 is CCD based and not CMOS based so you lose one potential downside.

You could still suffer some flicker affects, but not as bad as with a CMOS chipped cam.

Talk about going radical though, considering to learn to use your manual features after owning the cam two decades, a true walk on the wild side.

Manual white balance will certainly give you better results than auto-white balance, done correctly, but no guarantees as there are limits you have to expect when using inadequate lighting.

That is why the good stuff costs more.

Good luck.

[johnneumann]

Thank you, Tim.

You've got me off and running. I knew someday I was going to have to learn what all these buttons did.

I actually produced a commercial DVD using nothing but the auto settings. It's kind of funny now to think about it ... not knowing how a cam worked, but still making a sellable product.

Thanks again for the direction.

-JOHN

[BobFoster]

Another solution to shooting under flourescent bulbs is to use a white balance card designed for that purpose. Although not all flourescent bulbs are created equal, I have had good luck using "Shooters Blues" white balance cards for flourescent lighting. The greenish one is for flourescent and the bluish one is for "warming" the light for skin tones. http://www.shootersblues.com/products.html
Everyone who shoots outside their own studio should have a set of these in their grip bag.
Bob F.

[johnneumann]

Boy, you guys have sent me into research mode big time. This simple question has caused me to learn every there is to know about CFL bulbs and light spectrum specs.

Question for anybody who knows bulbs...

On video webpages, I see "daylight balanced" (ie, appropriate for supplementing sunlight) as 5500k.

In the hardware stores around my house, I see CFL bulbs that are touted as "daylight" bulbs, but they only rate 5000k.

Is there a working difference between 5000k and 5500k...?

Would a videographer serious about daylight bulbs be willing to use 5000k? Or is 5500k a must?

Major difference? No difference at all?

-JOHN

[BobFoster]

I doubt that the difference in flourescent bulbs 5000 vs 5500 is of any signifiance. My guess is that manufacturing differences probably don't meet those specs anyway. Bulbs from professional lighting suppliers is more likely to be on spot than your local hardware. The important point is that Flourescent lighting does NOT contain the complete spectrum of light frequencies and will record with a greenish tint no matter what color temp you are using. Secondly, not all manufacturers of flourescents are the same. A white balance card will improve your results and a white balance card designed for flourescent is even better. Also color is in the eye of the beholder. In my case it depends on which eye. After cataract surgery with the implant of a new lens, my old eye sees the world in a much warmer color than my right eye with the new clearer lense that makes whites look whiter. Don't get hung up on trying to get the perfect color balance unless you are doing commercials for whitening tooth paste. :-0 LOL.

[johnneumann]

Bob,

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like you know your lighting.

The reason I'm on this is because I will be doing lots of head-shot interviews either outdoors or indoors with light streaming in a window. I won't have perfect control of lighting.

So even with white balancing, I want to make sure that the light streaming in the window matches what's coming out of a home made softbox. I'm not as fixated on daylight-balanced specs as I am on the image making sense when I'm combining window light with a softbox containing a number of CFLs.

I shot a video last year ... outdoors ... with the subject under cheap halogen lights. (At the time, I thought light was light ... nothing to it.) The result was weird. The nature backdrop made perfect sense, but with the subject looking off-color and mismatching the background, everyone who sees the video assumes it's a green-screen backdrop when in fact it was all live in a backyard!

I"m going to be doing more of the same, some outdoors (probably only a reflector will be needed for that) and some indoors with windows providing half the light and a softbox filling in.

Do you have any more advice for me given that information?

-JOHN

[BobFoster]

I have not done it, but it is a common practice to cover the window with color correction gel to match the lights used in the room. Another alternative would be to use inside lights that would match the light coming thru the window. Personally, I prefer to block out the light coming in the window and use only inside lighting. The outside lighting is rarely continuious with clouds changing the intensity and color temperature as well as different times of the day will result in different color temperature. If you are editing and use scenes from significantly different times, the color may not match. I am not a lighting expert, but have had to deal with mistakes made over the years.