Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1947)
Reading and Downloading:
Record Details:
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!
Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.
Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.
View OCR Text
We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
18
COLOR
What color temperature means in better filming
LLOYD W. DURANT
PERFECT balance in color photography is an elusive quality that all exacting cameramen strive for. It is a quality which few consistently attain.
To the painstaking cinematographer there is probably nothing more discouraging than to discover, upon projecting his color footage, that many important scenes are distorted by off balance colors. He remembers the hours of work or days of travel spent in shooting this material. Now, as he views the disappointing results, he may see exterior scenes of otherwise excellent quality distorted by an overall reddish tinge, or green foliage overlaid with a distracting bluish haze.
On interior sequences filmed under tungsten lights, the subjects may have reddish yellow flesh tones. An object of bright coloring, such as a red vase, may now appear two or three shades deeper in brilliance. From the gradations of these distorted scenes, the cameraman is confident that his basic exposure was correct. He is puzzled by what he sees, possibly attributing the cause to poor laboratory processing or defective film. Actually, none of these is the true cause for his dilemma. The answer to his problem can be summarized in one brief sentence. He forgot to watch his color temperature!
When you are shooting color film, there is a reasonable chance that your pictures will be successful, even though you arc not acquainted with the subject of color temperature. However, you cannot afford to leave these results strictly to chance. Like all true color enthusiasts, you uanl to know what you are doing and why. To accomplish this, you should keep abreast of the present rapid advances of color techniques.
What is Color Temperature? Color temperature .is a term used to describe the color responses evoked by radiant energy from a given source. By this principle, we know that any light source, whclher it be sunlight, daylighl or an artificial source, transmits in its rays certain colors which are not visible to the naked human eye.
Of all the radiation present on earth, the human eye is actually sensitive to only a small part of it, known to us generally as light. This radiation which we recognize as
COLOR TEMPERATURE OF VARIOUS LIGHT SOURCES
Extremely blue, clear, northwest sky_ Blue northwest sky
Blue sky with thin white dcuJs
Hazy or smoky sky
Totally overcast
Daylight fluorescent (not recommended)
Sunlight plus light from clear sky— middaySunlight, hazy, slightly overcast
Noon sunlight — no skylight (Washington mean
noontime)
Blue daylight Photoflood (new)
250 watt, No. 1 Photoflood (new)
500 watt. No. 2 Photoflood (new)
1,000 watt, No. 4 Photoflood (new)_ Movie flood (new)
Mazda CP (color projection) lamps (new) 3200 Kelvin lamps (new)
500 watt, projection lamp (new)
1,000 watt, gas filled tungsten filament (new) 60 watt, vacuum tungsten filament (new)
Spectral
BLUE
26,000°
K.
19,000°
K.
12,000°
K.
8,000°
K.
6,600°
K.
6,500°
K.
6,100°
K.
5,850°
K.
5,400°
K.
4,800°
K.
3,450°
K.
3,430°
K.
3,415°
K.
3,410°
K.
3,380°
K.
3,200°
K.
3,190°
K.
2,920°
K.
2,509°
K.
Spectral
RED
Note: The exterior color temperatures given, which apply to front lighting, may vary between 300° and 500° K., depending upon geographical location and/or the season of year.
light is of the same electromagnetic nature as radio waves, infra-red rays (heat rays), ultraviolet rays, X-rays and cosmic rays.
It is these invisible rays with which every color filmer must concern himself if he is to obtain perfect color balance. For, though the spectral energy distributed by these light sources may not be discernible to the naked human eye, it is visible to the sensitized color film.
Measurements of Color Temperature. Like measurements of heat or cold, which are expressed in degrees of Fahrenheit or Centigrade, color temperatures are denoted in degrees of Kelvin (°K). They are 273° higher than the same temperature on the Centigrade scale.
A variation in color temperature of only 100° Kelvin will register on color film.
Light sources whose color temperatures tend towards the red side of the spectrum will have a correspondingly low Kelvin reading. Conversely, light sources of higher Kelvin readings tend towards the blue side of the spectrum. (See accompanying chart.)
Geographical locations and the seasons of the year affect the color temperature of daylight and sunlight sources, sometimes as much as 300° to 500° K. In tropical latitudes, the quality of sunlight will contain far more red than the light of a more northern latitude; while, in northern latitudes or polar areas, the quality of sunlight will be predominantly blue. The angle of deflection of sunrays and atmospheric variations are mainly responsible for these differences of light quality.
Color Film Balance. In order that color emulsions such as Kodachrome or Ansco Color [Continued on page 31]