Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
A Color Temperature Meter is a specialized light meter that measures the color of light and gives you the white balance settings to use on your camera, or in your RAW editing software.
The color meter is not an exposure meter. Exposure meters measure the brightness of light and give you recommended aperture and shutter speed settings for proper exposure. Most color meters use three photocell sensors, each filtered for one of the three primary colors of light (Red, Blue, and Green). By comparing the amount of each color, the meter can determine the light's color temperature and the amount of Magenta-Green correction (if any) that is needed. The Sekonic C700 is a more modern color meter that uses a CMOS sensor, like a digital camera, which allows it to analyze the light's characteristics more accurately than a traditional three-color meter.
If you don't understand what Color Temperature and Magenta-Green Correction are, please read my Demystifying White Balance Tutorial before continuing.
This tutorial will explain the different types of color meters available and will teach you how to use one to get accurate color when shooting digital.
Some Color Meters. From left to right: Gossen Sixticolor, Sekonic C-500, Minolta Color Meter IIIF, and Sekonic C-700.
There Are Three Types of Color Meters
Two-Color Meters
The earliest ones, which came out in the 1950s, were Two Color Meters. The Gossen Sixticolor is the most commonly seen two-color meter, as it was made from around 1960 until around 1990. Two color meters only measure Red and Blue light. They can only give a Color Temperature reading; they cannot give a reading for Magenta-Green Correction.
I would not recommend one. They are useless for Fluorescent and LED light sources, which usually require some Magenta-Green Correction. Because none of them have been made for nearly 30 years, and many of them on the used market are MUCH older, many of them are out of calibration and can no longer be serviced due to lack of parts. The Sixticolor in my collection is not accurate anymore; and because it uses Selenium metering cells, it works poorly in low light.
Three-Color Meters
Most modern color meters are Three Color Meters. Three color meters use three sensors, each filtered for one of the three primary colors of light: Red, Blue, and Green. These can read out both the Color Temperature and the Magenta-Green Correction (on the meters, this is called the CC value). They can be used for all light sources, and most can also read electronic flash.
Common examples of Three Color Meters are the Minolta Color Meter II, Minolta Color Meter IIIF, Kenko KCM-3100, and the Sekonic C-500. The Kenko KCM-3100 is actually the Minolta Color Meter IIIF. When Minolta stopped manufacturing photographic equipment, they sold their light meter division to Kenko, which renamed them and slightly changed the outside appearance of them.
These are all good meters, though I don't recommend the Sekonic C-500. Its low-light sensitivity is poor and it cannot read some incandescent lights because their color temperature is too low for it. I have one, and these issues have cropped up many times for me.
The Sekonic C-700 Spectrometer
The Sekonic C-700 is unique; it is a Spectometer that uses a CMOS sensor, like a digital camera uses, to analyze the light's spectral properties much more accurately than a Three Color Meter can.
Some of the C-700's features are fun if you're a geek like I am, but not really needed for photography. The best example being the Spectral Graph that it creates for each reading, so you can see what colors are present in what proportions in the light you're photographing under. This is actually useful for studio photographers, as it allows you to see if a light is capable of rendering accurate colors.
Outside the studio, where we have to shoot with the light that is there, even if the light is bad, then we have to rely on the meter to give us white balance settings that will get us as close as possible to accurate color.
Spectral graph for the fluorescent lights in my basement, measured by the Sekonic C-700. It shows the characteristic spikes in some colors and the red deficiency common to fluorescent tubes.
I prefer the C-700 over my other color meters because its low light sensitivity is very good, better than any other, and it is the most accurate one I have used.
Digital Mode and Film mode?
Sekonic introduced a new feature with the C-500 that carried through to the later C-700 meters: a choice of metering for Film or for Digital. They gave little explanation about how the meters calculate their readings for the two modes, or how the readings would compare to those from other color meters, like the Minoltas, that do not offer these modes. I did extensive testing and comparisons of the two modes on my Sekonic meters, and compared them to the readings on my Minolta Color Meter IIIF.
I have not seen anyone else publish such tests, or give recommendations on how to use these meters for digital still photography.
So, What's The Difference?
First off, the film mode and the digital mode do give different readings on the Sekonic meters, so there is a difference between them.
The Minolta Color Meter IIIF gives readings that are nearly identical to those given by the Sekonic color meters when those meters are set to their Film Mode. Remember that the Minolta, and the Kenko KCM-3100 that is based upon it, does not have separate modes for film and digital. It just gives one reading.
So, the Sekonic meters in Film Mode are calibrated like most other color meters. Does that mean those other meters are useless for digital? We'll look into that on the next post.
The color meter is not an exposure meter. Exposure meters measure the brightness of light and give you recommended aperture and shutter speed settings for proper exposure. Most color meters use three photocell sensors, each filtered for one of the three primary colors of light (Red, Blue, and Green). By comparing the amount of each color, the meter can determine the light's color temperature and the amount of Magenta-Green correction (if any) that is needed. The Sekonic C700 is a more modern color meter that uses a CMOS sensor, like a digital camera, which allows it to analyze the light's characteristics more accurately than a traditional three-color meter.
If you don't understand what Color Temperature and Magenta-Green Correction are, please read my Demystifying White Balance Tutorial before continuing.
This tutorial will explain the different types of color meters available and will teach you how to use one to get accurate color when shooting digital.
Some Color Meters. From left to right: Gossen Sixticolor, Sekonic C-500, Minolta Color Meter IIIF, and Sekonic C-700.
There Are Three Types of Color Meters
Two-Color Meters
The earliest ones, which came out in the 1950s, were Two Color Meters. The Gossen Sixticolor is the most commonly seen two-color meter, as it was made from around 1960 until around 1990. Two color meters only measure Red and Blue light. They can only give a Color Temperature reading; they cannot give a reading for Magenta-Green Correction.
I would not recommend one. They are useless for Fluorescent and LED light sources, which usually require some Magenta-Green Correction. Because none of them have been made for nearly 30 years, and many of them on the used market are MUCH older, many of them are out of calibration and can no longer be serviced due to lack of parts. The Sixticolor in my collection is not accurate anymore; and because it uses Selenium metering cells, it works poorly in low light.
Three-Color Meters
Most modern color meters are Three Color Meters. Three color meters use three sensors, each filtered for one of the three primary colors of light: Red, Blue, and Green. These can read out both the Color Temperature and the Magenta-Green Correction (on the meters, this is called the CC value). They can be used for all light sources, and most can also read electronic flash.
Common examples of Three Color Meters are the Minolta Color Meter II, Minolta Color Meter IIIF, Kenko KCM-3100, and the Sekonic C-500. The Kenko KCM-3100 is actually the Minolta Color Meter IIIF. When Minolta stopped manufacturing photographic equipment, they sold their light meter division to Kenko, which renamed them and slightly changed the outside appearance of them.
These are all good meters, though I don't recommend the Sekonic C-500. Its low-light sensitivity is poor and it cannot read some incandescent lights because their color temperature is too low for it. I have one, and these issues have cropped up many times for me.
The Sekonic C-700 Spectrometer
The Sekonic C-700 is unique; it is a Spectometer that uses a CMOS sensor, like a digital camera uses, to analyze the light's spectral properties much more accurately than a Three Color Meter can.
Some of the C-700's features are fun if you're a geek like I am, but not really needed for photography. The best example being the Spectral Graph that it creates for each reading, so you can see what colors are present in what proportions in the light you're photographing under. This is actually useful for studio photographers, as it allows you to see if a light is capable of rendering accurate colors.
Outside the studio, where we have to shoot with the light that is there, even if the light is bad, then we have to rely on the meter to give us white balance settings that will get us as close as possible to accurate color.
Spectral graph for the fluorescent lights in my basement, measured by the Sekonic C-700. It shows the characteristic spikes in some colors and the red deficiency common to fluorescent tubes.
I prefer the C-700 over my other color meters because its low light sensitivity is very good, better than any other, and it is the most accurate one I have used.
Digital Mode and Film mode?
Sekonic introduced a new feature with the C-500 that carried through to the later C-700 meters: a choice of metering for Film or for Digital. They gave little explanation about how the meters calculate their readings for the two modes, or how the readings would compare to those from other color meters, like the Minoltas, that do not offer these modes. I did extensive testing and comparisons of the two modes on my Sekonic meters, and compared them to the readings on my Minolta Color Meter IIIF.
I have not seen anyone else publish such tests, or give recommendations on how to use these meters for digital still photography.
So, What's The Difference?
First off, the film mode and the digital mode do give different readings on the Sekonic meters, so there is a difference between them.
The Minolta Color Meter IIIF gives readings that are nearly identical to those given by the Sekonic color meters when those meters are set to their Film Mode. Remember that the Minolta, and the Kenko KCM-3100 that is based upon it, does not have separate modes for film and digital. It just gives one reading.
So, the Sekonic meters in Film Mode are calibrated like most other color meters. Does that mean those other meters are useless for digital? We'll look into that on the next post.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Taking A Reading
The directions that come with the color meters I own are conflicting about how to use them.
The Minolta Color Meter IIIF instructions say to stand at the subject position and point the meter back directly toward the camera; the same way that you would use an incident light meter for determining exposure.
The Sekonic C-700 instructions say to point the meter at the light source.
Which technique is the correct one? In my experience, the correct technique is to point the meter back toward the camera, not the light source. This gives the most accurate color reproduction with all of my color meters.
The only time you would want to point the meter at a light source directly is when you are using artificial light and want to be sure that all of your lights are the same color. That's an important consideration for studio work. For the final color settings, you would then do a reading pointing the meter back to the camera.
What Do You Do With The Readings?
Once you have taken a reading with the color meter, what do you do with the white balance settings that the meter provides? The meter will give you two numbers: A Color Temperature, and a CC Value.
There are two possibilities for applying these settings to your photo. You can input Them Into Your Camera's Custom White Balance Settings; or you can write down the numbers and input them into your RAW editing software, like Lightroom or Capture One, when you edit the photos later. Which Should You Do?
If You Have A Sekonic C-500 or C-700
If you have a Sekonic C-500 or C-700 meter, you'll get the most accurate color by setting the meter to its Digital Mode and inputting the readings into your camera's custom white balance settings.
If you want to wait to input the settings into your RAW editing software, such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, or Capture One, then set the meter to its Film Mode and use those readings. With most editing software, the readings from the Digital Mode will give poor color; this despite the fact that entering the Digital Mode numbers into the camera gives the best color! With the editing software, the Film Mode readings give the best color.
A notable exception is with Canon's Digital Photo Pro software, the RAW editing software that Canon includes with their cameras. Use the digital Mode readings for Canon's software. This may be true with other camera-manufacturer-supplied RAW software; I have not tried it with anything but Canon.
Note: The Sekonic color meters give two types of CC readings. One is a CC Index, the other is a CC Filter. You want to use the CC Index reading. The CC Filter reading is for using Color Compensation Filters on your camera's lens; the CC Index is for digital correction by setting your camera's custom white balance or for inputting into photo editing software.
If You Have a Minolta or Kenko Color Meter
As I noted on the first page of this tutorial, The Minolta Color Meter IIIF and the Kenko meter that is based upon it do not have a choice of Film or Digital modes. These meters give readings that match the readings from the Sekonic Meters when the Sekonics are set to their Film Modes.
Because of that, my experience with the Minolta/Kenko meters is that the best results are obtained by inputting their readings into your RAW software, as explained in my directions for the Sekonic Film Modes above. If you input the readings from the Minolta/Kenko meters into your camera, the colors will be less accurate.
A note on Camera Settings
Most color meters read out Color Temperature in 10 degree increments and CC values in increments of one. The Sekonic C-700 reads out Color Temperature to a resolution of one degree and CC values to one tenth CC unit.
Most cameras do not allow setting their White Balance settings to such a high level of accuracy. My Canon 5DmkII allows setting Color Temperature in 100 degree increments and CC values in one CC increments. When setting my camera, I round up or down to the nearest unit for both Color Temperature and CC. This may seem rather inaccurate; especially for Color Temperature, where the camera setting may be as much as 50 degrees off from what the meter read out. In practice, this is not a problem. 50 degrees Kelvin may seem like a lot, but it is not. Few, if any, people can see such a small change in Color Temperature!
Which Is Best?
I get the very best results by using the Sekonic meters in Digital Mode and inputting the Color Temperature and CC values that they give directly into my camera's Custom White Balance Settings.
The color I get from inputting the Film Mode readings from the Sekonics (or the readings from the Minolta/Kenko meters) into Lightroom is SLIGHTLY warmer. Some people may actually prefer it, but it is not technically as accurate.
On the next post, we'll look at example photos made with both methods in different types of light.
The directions that come with the color meters I own are conflicting about how to use them.
The Minolta Color Meter IIIF instructions say to stand at the subject position and point the meter back directly toward the camera; the same way that you would use an incident light meter for determining exposure.
The Sekonic C-700 instructions say to point the meter at the light source.
Which technique is the correct one? In my experience, the correct technique is to point the meter back toward the camera, not the light source. This gives the most accurate color reproduction with all of my color meters.
The only time you would want to point the meter at a light source directly is when you are using artificial light and want to be sure that all of your lights are the same color. That's an important consideration for studio work. For the final color settings, you would then do a reading pointing the meter back to the camera.
What Do You Do With The Readings?
Once you have taken a reading with the color meter, what do you do with the white balance settings that the meter provides? The meter will give you two numbers: A Color Temperature, and a CC Value.
There are two possibilities for applying these settings to your photo. You can input Them Into Your Camera's Custom White Balance Settings; or you can write down the numbers and input them into your RAW editing software, like Lightroom or Capture One, when you edit the photos later. Which Should You Do?
If You Have A Sekonic C-500 or C-700
If you have a Sekonic C-500 or C-700 meter, you'll get the most accurate color by setting the meter to its Digital Mode and inputting the readings into your camera's custom white balance settings.
If you want to wait to input the settings into your RAW editing software, such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, or Capture One, then set the meter to its Film Mode and use those readings. With most editing software, the readings from the Digital Mode will give poor color; this despite the fact that entering the Digital Mode numbers into the camera gives the best color! With the editing software, the Film Mode readings give the best color.
A notable exception is with Canon's Digital Photo Pro software, the RAW editing software that Canon includes with their cameras. Use the digital Mode readings for Canon's software. This may be true with other camera-manufacturer-supplied RAW software; I have not tried it with anything but Canon.
Note: The Sekonic color meters give two types of CC readings. One is a CC Index, the other is a CC Filter. You want to use the CC Index reading. The CC Filter reading is for using Color Compensation Filters on your camera's lens; the CC Index is for digital correction by setting your camera's custom white balance or for inputting into photo editing software.
If You Have a Minolta or Kenko Color Meter
As I noted on the first page of this tutorial, The Minolta Color Meter IIIF and the Kenko meter that is based upon it do not have a choice of Film or Digital modes. These meters give readings that match the readings from the Sekonic Meters when the Sekonics are set to their Film Modes.
Because of that, my experience with the Minolta/Kenko meters is that the best results are obtained by inputting their readings into your RAW software, as explained in my directions for the Sekonic Film Modes above. If you input the readings from the Minolta/Kenko meters into your camera, the colors will be less accurate.
A note on Camera Settings
Most color meters read out Color Temperature in 10 degree increments and CC values in increments of one. The Sekonic C-700 reads out Color Temperature to a resolution of one degree and CC values to one tenth CC unit.
Most cameras do not allow setting their White Balance settings to such a high level of accuracy. My Canon 5DmkII allows setting Color Temperature in 100 degree increments and CC values in one CC increments. When setting my camera, I round up or down to the nearest unit for both Color Temperature and CC. This may seem rather inaccurate; especially for Color Temperature, where the camera setting may be as much as 50 degrees off from what the meter read out. In practice, this is not a problem. 50 degrees Kelvin may seem like a lot, but it is not. Few, if any, people can see such a small change in Color Temperature!
Which Is Best?
I get the very best results by using the Sekonic meters in Digital Mode and inputting the Color Temperature and CC values that they give directly into my camera's Custom White Balance Settings.
The color I get from inputting the Film Mode readings from the Sekonics (or the readings from the Minolta/Kenko meters) into Lightroom is SLIGHTLY warmer. Some people may actually prefer it, but it is not technically as accurate.
On the next post, we'll look at example photos made with both methods in different types of light.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Here are some example images made under different light sources, showing the differences between setting the white balance on the camera and in Lightroom with readings from the Sekonic C-700.
I also show you the screen from the meter for each light source, for both the Digital Mode and the Film Mode readings. Before we look at the photos, let me explain what you're seeing on the meter's screen.
Sekonic C-700 Screen Readouts
Target: This is the color temperature that your film or sensor is designed for. It only affects readings if you have the meter set up to give you filter numbers for Light Balancing and Color Compensating filters to put on the camera lens. Because we're setting white balance on the camera or in software, this is irrelevant, and it does not matter what it is set for. Sekonic's default for Digital mode is 5200k and for Film Mode it is 5500k. They can be changed if you need to do so (really, you don't).
CCT and PCT: This is the Color Temperature readings the meter gives you when it measures the color of light for you. Sekonic calls it "Correlated Color Temperature" for Digital and "Photographic Color Temperature" for Color.
CCi: Color Correction Index. This is the Magenta-Green Correction value. It'll have a letter G for Green and a Letter M for Magenta. If no CC correction is needed, it'll just say 0.
Ra: This is Sekonic's name for what everyone else calls "CRI" (Color Rendering Index). It is a number that tells you how well a light can render color. Some light sources, like Fluorescents and LEDs, have strange color spectrums that lack some colors while having spikes in certain others. You'll see it in the Fluoresecent example's Spectral Graph below. With Ra, a value of 100 is perfect and is supposed to be the value of clear sunlight. Anything over 90 is generally regarded as usable for high quality color photography. The Sekonic C-700 is the only color meter made for photographers that gives you this information.
Spectral Graph: A graph showing the full color spectrum from blue to red. You can see if a light source is lacking some parts of the visual spectrum, as Fluorescents and LEDs often are, by looking at the graph.
Example: Incandescent Light
Sekonic C-700 readouts from incandescent light.
Incandescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Incandescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
Example: Fluorescent Light
Sekonic C-700 readouts from fluorescent light.
Fluorescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Fluorescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
Example: Sunlight
Sekonic C-700 readouts from direct sunlight.
Daylight in full sun, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Daylight in full sun, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
I also show you the screen from the meter for each light source, for both the Digital Mode and the Film Mode readings. Before we look at the photos, let me explain what you're seeing on the meter's screen.
Sekonic C-700 Screen Readouts
Target: This is the color temperature that your film or sensor is designed for. It only affects readings if you have the meter set up to give you filter numbers for Light Balancing and Color Compensating filters to put on the camera lens. Because we're setting white balance on the camera or in software, this is irrelevant, and it does not matter what it is set for. Sekonic's default for Digital mode is 5200k and for Film Mode it is 5500k. They can be changed if you need to do so (really, you don't).
CCT and PCT: This is the Color Temperature readings the meter gives you when it measures the color of light for you. Sekonic calls it "Correlated Color Temperature" for Digital and "Photographic Color Temperature" for Color.
CCi: Color Correction Index. This is the Magenta-Green Correction value. It'll have a letter G for Green and a Letter M for Magenta. If no CC correction is needed, it'll just say 0.
Ra: This is Sekonic's name for what everyone else calls "CRI" (Color Rendering Index). It is a number that tells you how well a light can render color. Some light sources, like Fluorescents and LEDs, have strange color spectrums that lack some colors while having spikes in certain others. You'll see it in the Fluoresecent example's Spectral Graph below. With Ra, a value of 100 is perfect and is supposed to be the value of clear sunlight. Anything over 90 is generally regarded as usable for high quality color photography. The Sekonic C-700 is the only color meter made for photographers that gives you this information.
Spectral Graph: A graph showing the full color spectrum from blue to red. You can see if a light source is lacking some parts of the visual spectrum, as Fluorescents and LEDs often are, by looking at the graph.
Example: Incandescent Light
Sekonic C-700 readouts from incandescent light.
Incandescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Incandescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
Example: Fluorescent Light
Sekonic C-700 readouts from fluorescent light.
Fluorescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Fluorescent light, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
Example: Sunlight
Sekonic C-700 readouts from direct sunlight.
Daylight in full sun, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Daylight in full sun, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Example: Windowlight
Sekonic C-700 readouts from soft daylight coming through a window.
Soft daylight coming through the window, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Soft daylight coming through the window, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
What About Backlit Scenes?
The instructions that I have given you so far for using color meters assumed that you were photographing scenes that were lit primarily from the front. What about backlit or strongly sidelit scenes?
If you use a color meter in the normal way, pointing it back toward the camera from the subject position, with a backlit or strongly sidelit scene, you'll get color that is way too warm. This is because the meter's sensors will be in shadow, and shadows are lit by cool-colored light. Cool colored means high color temperature, as my Demystifying White Balance article explains.
Color meter instructions don't tell you how to do this; I had to figure it out myself. The solution is to make two readings with your color meter, and average them! One reading should be a normal camera-direction reading from the subject position. The other reading should also be from the subject position, but with the meter pointed directly at the light source (usually the sun if you're outdoors, or the bright sky behind the subject if it is a cloudy day).
Average both the Color Temperature readings and the CC readings. The CC readings will probably be very close to each other if you're shooting outdoors under daylight, but there will probably be a big difference in Color Temperature. Just do a simple mathematical average: add the two Color Temperature readings then divide by two. So, if one is 6500k and the other is 4500k, then you're average would be 5500k (6500 + 4500 = 11000. 11000 / 2 = 5500).
Here Are Some Backlit Example Photos
Sekonic C-700 readouts from soft daylight coming through a window.
Soft daylight coming through the window, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Digital Mode, with the white balance settings entered into my camera's custom white balance settings.
Soft daylight coming through the window, metered with the Sekonic C-700 in Film Mode, with the white balance settings entered into Adobe Lightroom.
What About Backlit Scenes?
The instructions that I have given you so far for using color meters assumed that you were photographing scenes that were lit primarily from the front. What about backlit or strongly sidelit scenes?
If you use a color meter in the normal way, pointing it back toward the camera from the subject position, with a backlit or strongly sidelit scene, you'll get color that is way too warm. This is because the meter's sensors will be in shadow, and shadows are lit by cool-colored light. Cool colored means high color temperature, as my Demystifying White Balance article explains.
Color meter instructions don't tell you how to do this; I had to figure it out myself. The solution is to make two readings with your color meter, and average them! One reading should be a normal camera-direction reading from the subject position. The other reading should also be from the subject position, but with the meter pointed directly at the light source (usually the sun if you're outdoors, or the bright sky behind the subject if it is a cloudy day).
Average both the Color Temperature readings and the CC readings. The CC readings will probably be very close to each other if you're shooting outdoors under daylight, but there will probably be a big difference in Color Temperature. Just do a simple mathematical average: add the two Color Temperature readings then divide by two. So, if one is 6500k and the other is 4500k, then you're average would be 5500k (6500 + 4500 = 11000. 11000 / 2 = 5500).
Here Are Some Backlit Example Photos
shimokita
白黒
Thank you for the follow-up post on Color Metering
My take away from your testing / recommendations is that there is no best case solution when using a Minolta / Kenko Color Meter while shooting with a Canon 5D MkII and editing with DPP.
01) Poor results if I input film Mode measurements directly into the Canon's custom WB settings
02) Poor results if I input film Mode measurements into the DPP application editing
Since the above is my current situation, it looks like I will be doing some testing.
Kind regards, Casey
My take away from your testing / recommendations is that there is no best case solution when using a Minolta / Kenko Color Meter while shooting with a Canon 5D MkII and editing with DPP.
01) Poor results if I input film Mode measurements directly into the Canon's custom WB settings
02) Poor results if I input film Mode measurements into the DPP application editing
Since the above is my current situation, it looks like I will be doing some testing.
Kind regards, Casey
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Yes.
I decided to edit each of the test images in Canon DPP, inputting the C700's Film Mode readings. This should give similar results to entering in your Kenko meter's readings into the camera or DPP. I wanted to see just how far off the color would be.
Incandescent Light. C700 in Film Mode, settings entered into Canon's RAW software, DPP-4.
Fluorescent Light. C700 in Film Mode, settings entered into Canon's RAW software, DPP-4.
Sunlight. C700 in Film Mode, settings entered into Canon's RAW software, DPP-4.
Windowlight. C700 in Film Mode, settings entered into Canon's RAW software, DPP-4.
The results aren't horrible, but not perfect, either. Generally, they are too green and too blue, as you'd expect from the differences in Color Temperature and CC index between the Digital Mode and Film Mode (film Mode being similar in results to your Kenko meter).
An exception was the Fluorescent light test, which came out about right on the green, but a little too yellow. Visually, it actually looks good, despite being technically imperfect, though. Fluorescents are difficult to white balance, even with a color meter.
charjohncarter
Veteran
I've never used a color meter, but this subject still interests me. Like I said before the theater work that I do is in very mixed lighting: i.e. many different lights with completely different color temperatures. This is a confusing scene and I have tried those frosted lens covers to set custom temperature. I have very little success doing this. I seem to do better with the auto-white balance and then adjusting with the post processing slider. Do you think a color meter would help in my situation?
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I think your problem is they're using lights with colored gels (filters for those who haven't done any stage work). Without the gels, the lights they use are probably all the same type of light. In the past Halogen lights were used for stage lighting and spotlights, but today they might be LEDS.
The problem is, the colored gels can't really be color balanced for. A color meter, and the white balance settings in your camera and in Lightroom/Photoshop/Etc. are made for the range of color temps found in natural light and in 'white' artificial lights.
Strongly colored gels throw the color of the lights WAY outside the range that can be corrected for. That's the point; they want those lights to color the scene!
Here's something you might try. See if you can go on stage before the performance and measure the color of the 'white lights' used to light the stage and meter the white spotlight too, if they use one.
You can use a color meter, but you don't have to. You can use your white balance cap (take a picture through it one or two stops over the meter reading, so you have a light gray image), or photograph a white balance card like a WhiBal or a Color checker Passport then set white balance using the eyedropper in your RAW editing software.
Use that white balance with the shots done during the play, even with the colored gels. The colors will show in the images; but they were supposed to anyway. Things in the scene lit by 'white light' will look normal. I suspect you'll like the results if you do that.
charjohncarter
Veteran
Thanks, my photos are really all just for promotion, so I have plenty of time to do as you suggest. I can even have the lighting person turn on just the un-geled lights before we start shooting. Thanks very much.
EDIT: Also thanks for the tip about underexposing.
EDIT: Also thanks for the tip about underexposing.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I think if you do the white balancing from just the un-gelled lights like that, it'll work well.
About the white balance cap, I meant to say overexpose one or two stops, not underexpose. White balancing using the eyedropper in RAW software is more accurate from a light gray or white (but not so light that it is blown out or nearly blown out) tone rather than the middle gray that you'll get if you expose through the white balance cap using your camera's meter without modification.
charjohncarter
Veteran
Thanks, I tried it both ways, you did say over, and my brain said aperture over. So you were right.