Light sources question

[D1337]

I got an assignment in school today and I'm completely lost!

Important: Keep the White Balance on your camera set to “Daylight” and Iso 400.
Shoot all images in RAW.

Light Sources to be used:

1 Daylight 5000 - 6500 K
2 Incandescent bulb 2500 – 3500 K
3 Quartz Halogen 2800 K
4 Sodium (Xenon) Vapour 3500 – 4500 K
5 Candle 1000 – 2000 K
6 Fluorescent – Cool 4000 5000 K
7 Fluorescent – Warm 2700 3000 K
8 Fluorescent – Daylight 5300 – 5500 K
9 One additional light source of your own choice

I don't have a clue what 6 of those are! Can you please explain to me all of the above, just to make sure I'm doing the right thing?

Thanks!

[beavo451]

White balance refers to the color temperature of a given light source. I can see the point of the assignment is to note what kind of an effect you get with mis-matched white balance and lighting. Shooting RAW makes correcting white balance very easy. Later on, you can learn about mixing various lighting together to get different effects.


1 Daylight 5000 - 6500 K Outdoors, sunny or cloudy. Cloudy will be cooler
2 Incandescent bulb 2500 – 3500 K Regular lightbulb
3 Quartz Halogen 2800 K Work lights/flood lights
4 Sodium (Xenon) Vapour 3500 – 4500 K Usually those big lights in basketball courts and other sporting venues
5 Candle 1000 – 2000 K A regular flame candle
6 Fluorescent – Cool 4000 5000 K Most flourescent lights in office spaces, stores, etc.
7 Fluorescent – Warm 2700 3000 K Most CFL type bulbs
8 Fluorescent – Daylight 5300 – 5500 K A flourescent bulb that has gives off a light temperature that is similar to daylight. Will say something like "daylight" on the packaging.
9 One additional light source of your own choice Whatever you want, camera flash maybe?

[D1337]

Yeah, I was aware of white balances and I've been working with RAW for a while, I just didn't know the light sources.
Thank you VERY much for your information!

[number six]

Beavo has it covered very well. I just might mention that the sodium vapor lamps are the yellow ones, not the blue (mercury vapor).

-js

[korrektor]

basically color temperature is such: the lower the numbers the redder the image will be.
If you tweak the Kelvin temperature on your camera WB settings it's the opposite - the lower the numbers - the more blue your photo will turn out.

For example a sunset is around 3500K. If you want to cancel out the redness put lower than 3500K on your camera. If you want to enhance the redness - turn the WB to 6000-8000K.