Design What Gels to Use - Color Correction

[epicket1]

I watched on utube that you can use gels to change lights from a daylight to indoor Kelvin rating by putting a orange, or blue gel on the lights. Which gel type and number (Rosco or Lee) are the best for this? I have 500 Watt lighting fixtures.

 

[JLNorthGA]

What color temperature are you running on your 500 W fixtures? Typically I use a Lee 203 or 202 (CT Blue) to convert 3200 K lights to daylight. I would use the CT oranges to convert daylight to tungsten. Look on the Lee website. They have a good section on their colors there.

 

[derekleffew]

You need to know the color temperature of the fixtures you have, as well as what you want to achieve. Generally, if you have a tungsten incandescent source (~2800K to 3400K), you'd use a CTB filter to raise the color temperature to match daylight. If you have daylight or gaseous discharge source (~5000 to 6000K), you'd use a CTO filter to lower the color temperature. Mired shift also comes into play, as does the white balance of the camera(s).

Here are the most pertinent color filters from the "big 4" US color manufacturers:


If the stage lighting is solely for the benefit of the live audience, with no cameras involved, you can use any color filter you want that achieves the desired effect.

(Click any term with a dotted yellow underline to be taken to the wiki definition.)

 

[WooferHound]

Color correction from incandescent to daylight uses CTB correction gels
correction from daylight to incandescent requires CTO correction filters.
CTB = Color Temperature Blue
CTO = Color Temperature Orange

 

[epicket1]

I watched on utube that you can use gels to change lights from a daylight to indoor Kelvin rating by putting a orange, or blue gel on the lights. Which gel type and number (Rosco or Lee) are the best for this? I have 500 Watt lighting fixtures.

They are Tungsten GE Bulbs.

 

[65535]

What exactly are you trying to achieve.

You have a 500W incandescent lamp with a color temperature between 2700K and 3200K. That's a fine light source for filming.

I'm not sure what you mean by indoor Kelvin rating, that is specific to the lamps installed in a given structure.

Daylight is between 5500K-6500K roughly.

 

[icewolf08]

I watched on utube that you can use gels to change lights from a daylight to indoor Kelvin rating by putting a orange, or blue gel on the lights. Which gel type and number (Rosco or Lee) are the best for this?

I have 500 Watt lighting fixtures. They are Tungsten GE Bulbs.

Every lamp used in stage and studio fixtures has a lamp code that will allow you to find the specifications of the lamp. These are standardized by ANSI for almost all the lamps used in film/video/tv/theatre. There are still some that don't have standard ANSI codes.

Also, many fixtures only have a specific lamp or small number of lamps that are rated for use in the fixture, so if you can tell us either what fixture you are using or what the lamp is, we can be a lot more specific about what color correction you need to achieve the look you want.