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Filter Facts
by Chris Ray

First of all, you need to understand what the Kelvin temperature scale is. The Kelvin scale is a scale for measuring temperature from absolute zero, the temperature that scientists believe is the coldest possible because absolutely no heat energy exists at that temperature. The steps from degree to degree in the Kelvin scale are the same size as the steps in Celsius, but 0' Kelvin is absolute zero.

Imagine now that you were to take a lump of carbon called a black body and start heating it, all the while measuring its temperature in degrees Kelvin. As the black body gets hotter and hotter, it will begin to glow red. Once it starts glowing, heating it more will make it change colors. When it reaches 3200K, it will glow orange. When it reaches 5600K, it will glow blue.

At some point somebody decided that using those temperatures would be a good way to describe those colors in other sources of light, and that method of naming the colors became color temperature. Thus, when someone refers to 3200K light, it means that the light is the same orange color that a black body would glow when heated to 3200 degrees Kelvin. Now that we have a scale to describe the light, we can measure color.

That's the source of those numbers on your camera that correspond to the filters. A 3200K filter is for light that is closer to orange. A 5600K or 6400K filter is for light that is closer to blue. But your eyes automatically adjust to see different light sources as "white," so how do you know when to use which filter?

First, most tungsten light is between 2700K and 3400K. The light bulbs you screw into sockets in your house are tungsten. The quartz bulbs you put in a Lowel light kit are tungsten. For this kind of light, you'll want to use your 3200K filter on your camera.

Direct sunlight is usually around 5600K. Shaded areas outdoors during daylight can have higher color temperatures, up to 10,000K, making them appear more blue. For these lighting conditions, you'll want one of your daylight filters, which will probably be 5600K on a single wheel system.

But what about these other markings on the wheel, the ND settings? ND stands for neutral density. Neutral density is a grey filter that should not affect the color of light passing through it in any way. You can think of it as sunglasses for your camera.

If you are outside in direct sunlight, the light will probably be too bright for your regular 5600K filter. You need a way to knock down the light so that the camera can handle it. That's where ND comes in. Cameras usually have the ND expressed in fractions, such as 1/4, 1/16, etc. What that fraction means is that the ND filter is dark enough that it only lets in that fraction of the light hitting the lens: a 1/4 ND filter means that only 1/4 of the light coming into the lens is being allowed into the camera.

Most single wheel cameras have the ND filters combined with the daylight filters; you'll usually have one 5600K filter with no ND and two filters with different levels of ND on them. One of them will be intended for moderate daylight, while the other will be better for bright, direct sunshine.

It's useful to understand where all those numbers come from, so if anything doesn't make sense, please ask questions.

Now let's look at practical application. First, forget about any advice on which filter to use indoors or outdoors. Don't think about whether you're inside or outside, but rather what color the light is wherever you are.

With that in mind, if you're shooting under tungsten light, you'll usually want to white balance on your 3200K filter. You can have tungsten light inside buildings, or outside at night.

If you're outside under daylight, you'll usually want your 5600K filter. But what about inside a building with a big window? If the room is lit mostly with daylight from the window, you still want your 5600K filter.

Flourescents can be a bit tricky, because they come in different colors. In offices, where we usually encounter them, they are either 3200K or 4300K. In either case, you can use your 3200K filter. However, some hospitals have 5600K flourescents in certain wards that require your 5600K filter. If you get an error message when white balancing on your 3200K filter in a hospital, that may be the problem.

Also problematic are gym, hangar and stadium lights. Sometimes these, too are daylight, and will require your 5600K filter.

On the opposite extreme are sodium vapor lamps, those horrible orange/red streetlamps. These will often be as low as 2300K, and will sometimes give you error messages telling you the color temperature is too low. Just balance on your 3200K filter and hope for the best.

The worst situation is mixed light sources. You might be in a room that is lit on one side by daylight from the window, but lit on the other side by tungsten. Which filter do you choose? You have to white balance on the correct filter for whatever you're shooting. Thus, if you shoot something by the window, you need to be on your 5600K filter; if you move over by the door where the tungsten light is the strongest, you'll have to switch back to your 3200K filter.

If this sounds complicated, don't worry; you'll learn it by doing it. It's easier if you learn to override your brain's tendency to process everything as white and learn to really see the colors. If you have access to any tungsten lights, a good start is to take one outside during daylight, point it at the ground and pay attention to the difference in color. Then set it up under some flourescents inside and do the same thing.

Another good exercise is to try to guess what color the light is before you white balance. Look at a room and say, "I bet these flourescents are 4300K." When you white balance, most cameras will tell you in the viewfinder what color the light is. Guess first, then see if you're right.

If I haven't lost you yet, there's one more thing I should clarify. We often refer to colors of light in terms of "warm" and "cool." The problem is that we refer to them backward from the way the color temperature works. We say that blue light is "cool," while orange light is "warm." But blue light has a higher color temperature than warm light. It seems ass backward and counterintuitive, but it has to do with the way heat is transmitted and works out okay if you just remember that those two ways of referring to color work in reverse of each other.

And one other thing: I haven't mentioned the numbers of the filters themselves (i.e. 1,2,3,4 or A,B,C,D). I'm leaving it up to you to take what you've learned here and apply it to your specific camera, figuring out which filter corresponds to which type of light depending on color temperature.

That's a lot to digest, so please ask questions.

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