How do you measure light temperature quickly?

4 years 10 months ago #648497 by Office Guy
If you don't have a light meter, and you want to know the color temperature quickly, is there an app or way that this can be done? *Accurate way.  


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4 years 10 months ago - 4 years 10 months ago #648501 by Nikon Shooter
By definition, a light meter will measure the amount of light
present at the moment of the sampling, data collection.

A colour meter is an other beast altogether and not to con-
fuse with a K scale meter — which measures the heat at the
surface of matter. A colour meter is a much trickier piece of
equipment that cost quite a bit and — though good luminan-
ce meters my be offered for smart phone — I don't know that
colourmeters are.

Setting your WB in-camera to auto and using a grey card are
the tools I use to precisely reference captures with a sensor.

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 10 months ago #648502 by zachdos
 LightSpectrum Pro iOS app can help you measure the light temperature easily. Note that you must place the camera towards white surface and not towards the light source itself for better results.


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4 years 10 months ago - 4 years 10 months ago #648503 by Nikon Shooter

zachdos wrote:  LightSpectrum Pro iOS app can help you measure the light temperature easily. Note that you must place the camera towards white surface and not towards the light source itself for better results.



I've looked into this and
  1. it is clearly a tool to evaluate "relative" but not measure "precise" colour temperatures. 
  2. how to be sure the phone sensor and app are calibrated correctly
  3. the references read by the phone and the apps are not part of a "standard" scale, and
  4. all this means that there is too much play, tolerance to help with the OP's wish for accuracy.
Using your camera's inboard setting and a converter that recognises your camera profile
are the safer and faster starting points in the your quest for accuracy.

These illustrate the suggested and applied method on live concert takes — where stage
lights were not set by a pro light technician. The first is corrected as the second is SOOC.




Light is free… capturing it is not!
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