what is better: 5000K >> 3000K or 3000K >> 5000K

the pros roll their eyes, sorry for this nooby question:
What I understood, there're basically two color temperaturs, ~3000 aka 'warm' and ~5000 aka 'cold'

What I've also learned, there're products like Lee Filters to change color temperatur of lights.

Now, the Hobby-Shop crew at school asked my Film-Club, if they like some home-made lights, e.g. those circle shaped 'beauty light', or those huge 'flat/flood lights'... they showed me some clever construction plans, utilizing cheap LED-hoses (astonishing bright!) .... there are professional engineers helping the kids, so, that is of no poblem.

but .......

They asked me what we movie-makers prefer, warm or cold.
Well, both

No, serious: any reason to prefer one?
You get those foils for both directions ... What is better (for whatever reason)??

...

Normally shoot as neutral as you can, then grade in post. But, chasing to shoot cool or warm is an artistic decision, based on the emotional content of the scene. Neither is better than the other in general.

I actually prefer 5600K because it matches daylight. That way you can mix your lights and sunlight. If you need to match tungsten, you only need a little CTO for the lights. If you go the other way, you will need to gel entire windows to match. Just kidding. I mix with daylight most often. It depends on what you will combine the lights with most. If you shoot a lot of location scenes with daylight coming through windows, then daylight is better. If you work in a studio a lot, and already have a bunch of tungsten lights, then tungsten is best.

I agree with Daniel it is easier to gel Daylight 5000k-6500k lights to balance with existing Tungsten/warm fluorescent 2700-3200 lighting ... than the other way around.

What it boils down to is the conditions you are lighting for. While our cameras can dial in a white balance that can render clean skin tones and neutral whites under most conditions, it is when when we encounter "mixed" lighting conditions that can cause issues.

For example if you were trying to use a 3000k light as your main and window light as your fill ... you are going to have issues that a small gel on the 3000k light can't easily handle (if at all under most conditions) .... whereas, if you turned the table and were using a 5000k light as your main and the natural interior warm balanced fluorescent or tungsten lighting as your fill ... applying a small sheet of the proper CTO gel to the 5000k keeps everything in true balance quite efficiently.

This is why in the still photography industry, almost all electronic flash units are balanced for 5000-5500k and the use of gels is applied when needed for the conditions encountered when dealing with mixed lighting conditions.

Therefore ... If I had to choose only one color balance choice for my lighting, it would definitely be 5000k.

I'd be careful buying "cheap" LED fixtures. They often have odd colour shifts to them, often green, or magenta. I really suggest testing them first. See if they come with a CRI rating.

In my experience cheap LEDs are not worth it. they usually get resorted to effect lighting or edge lighting.

at their worst they can even cause banding or flicker in your images.

use with extreme caution.

Just learned. Had similar question but finally set it in warm when shooting family moments. That did make skin look soft..

Thanks everybody, sharing your insights!

.... and excellent 'hands on' examples, I can understand... , "… you will need to gel entire windows to match. Just kidding…" maybe meant funny but hits the spot.

Just to remember: school prrojects, …. The last 2y this course exists, noboy had a clue, what White Balance is; or, the kids plastered tons of 'Looks' onto the clips, you could use b/w material as a starting point.....

I think, for our needs, we should use 'daylight', and I organize some orange foils ... LOL

"cheap" ... yep, Grandma said "cheap buying means buying twice" ... but here collide wishful thinking with reality ... some parents are very generous, supporting us, but to explain "20€ LEDs have < 80 CRI, so we need the 200€ solution to get CRI94 at last " ... nope, no opion here.... If we had such a budget, I would invest first in 'audio' ....


All answers very helpful, thanks again, after the summer holidays, I will instruct the Hobby-Shop Dept ...

whitemax wrote: ... similar question but finally set it in warm when shooting family moments. That did make skin look soft..

yeah, when you decide for a single poject ...
here, we're looking for the 'universal solution', we do anything, from interviews inside to action outside ...

... we/the kids love to colorize in the post ... they love anything we do in post, demoed lately Audio Effects, the teacher speaking like a chipmonk - they went ballistic LOL. Great fun to 'work' with kids ....


Anyhow, thanks for your suggestion too!