Published: September 15, 2019 | Last Updated: November 25, 2025
What is color temperature? Definition & Meaning
Color temperature tells you the hue of your light source. It’s measured in degrees Kelvin (K). Lower numbers make the light look blue and cold. Higher numbers make it look orange and warm. This is the first step in fixing color on set, done through a process called white balancing.
Got all that? Now let’s make sense of it, starting with…
Color Temperature
Not all lights are the same. Some look orange, others blue, and some just look plain white. That difference comes from something called color temperature.
Color temperature measures the hue of a light source, and it’s rated in Kelvin (K). The lower the number, the warmer (more orange) the light. The higher the number, the cooler (more blue) it looks.
- Firelight or indoor bulbs sit around 3000K or lower
- Fluorescent office lights fall in the middle
- Daylight hits 6000K or more
This is why Christmas lights can look yellow, and streetlights look orange; each light gives off a different color temperature.
Every lighting type has a unique color temperature, bringing me to…
Tungsten Lights
Let’s talk about some lights you may be using on a film set or shoot:
The most basic lighting kits you can rent are usually tungsten-based lights. These naturally run high-kelvin temperatures or a more yellow-orange glow. Your 250s, 500s, 1Ks, and 2Ks will all have that standard lightbulb yellow color associated with them.
So be aware of the color temperature you will be getting when using these cheap kits. If high Kelvin isn’t what you’re looking for, you have other options, such as…
Fluorescent Lights and Softboxes
Softboxes and fluorescents, often used for photography due to their neutral glow, generally give off a clearer white light, something in the middle Kelvin range, 4000-4500ish.
If you get a few of these, you can mimic portrait light or, in some cases, a very soft, foggy white light of a dull, cloud-covered day.
If you aren’t financially able to take advantage of different lighting kits and are instead stuck with the cheapest option (usually tungsten), then fear not. There is still another way to get the color temperature you seek:
Gels
Gels are thin sheets of colored plastic that change the hue of your lights. You attach them to the barn doors or the front of a light. They’re an easy way to fix color balance or add style to a shot.
Let’s say you’re mixing daylight with tungsten light. In-camera, one will always look off. If you set the white balance for daylight, the tungsten goes too orange. If you set it for tungsten, daylight goes too blue.
Gels solve this. Put a blue gel on the tungsten light to match it to daylight. Then set your camera for daylight, and everything looks even.
Most gels come with a Kelvin rating, so you know how they’ll shift the light. Some are just for correction, others are for color effects, like neon pinks or deep greens.
They’re cheap, reusable, and a go-to tool for creative and balanced lighting.
LEDs and Changing Hues
Modern LED lights make it easier to control color temperature without gels. Most come with dials that let you adjust both brightness and Kelvin directly. This saves time and helps you match your light to daylight, tungsten, or other sources.
LEDs also stay cool, making them safer and easier to move during setup and breakdown.
When choosing LEDs, check the CRI (Color Rendering Index). A high CRI (90+) means the light shows colors more accurately, especially skin tones. For film work, that accuracy matters.
Color Temperature and Camera Settings
So you get how color temperature works with light. But how does it connect to your camera?
Your camera has a color temperature setting, measured in Kelvin. This tells the camera how to read the light in the scene.
- Low Kelvin (like 3000K) makes the image look orange
- High Kelvin (like 6000K+) makes it look blue
Contrary to what you may think, this setting is not a quick-fix tool for color-grading. You’re not designing the image’s color palette through color temperature settings, which are saved for the edit.
This is the first step in making your footage look natural.
White Balance
What you see isn’t always what your camera sees. That’s where white balance comes in. If your footage looks too orange or blue, it’s likely because your camera isn’t set to match the color temperature of your lights. Your brain corrects this automatically; your camera doesn’t.
White balance tells the camera what “true white” looks like in the scene.
- If the light is too cool (blue), raise the Kelvin setting.
- If it’s too warm (orange), lower it.
White balance isn’t about style. It’s the first step in color correction, getting clean, natural colors before grading in post.
If you want to learn more about white balance and looks, check out our guide, Look, LOG, LUT, White Balance, Picture Profile & RAW.
Let’s Talk Practicality
I mentioned that different types of lights have different color temperatures, which means you must adjust your camera’s color temperature accordingly. Still, let’s discuss some general Kelvin settings for certain everyday lighting situations.
The standard temperature setting for white balance in direct sunlight, which is very blue, is 5600K.
For incandescent or tungsten lights, which are very orange, set your temperature to 3200K.
For fluorescent bulbs, which are more in the middle of the road and white, a color temperature of 4000-4500K will work.
Setting your Kelvin value in-camera to match the light’s temperature tells the camera what light is missing in the footage.
So when your camera is interpreting 3200K light, which is very orange, it knows to add blue to the image (or pull orange out) to balance it and make white look white. The same goes for high-Kelvin blue light.
You can commit to memory in these typical situations, but for everything else, there’s a useful tool called a…
Gray Card
A grey card is a tool for setting white balance. It’s a neutral mid-gray that cameras can read easily.
Place it in the same light as your subject. Then use your camera’s custom white balance setting to lock in the correct color temperature. This gives you accurate colors for the whole scene.
Auto white balance can work, but for film, manual control is better. Using a grey card helps you learn how light and color really behave, and keeps your shots consistent.
Balance Like a True Cinematographer
Now, you should be more than capable of balancing your image and correctly setting the color temperature in your camera. And even if you want to keep that blue-toned or orange-hued image, at least now it will be your choice.
If you still have any other questions about white balance, color temperature, or Kelvin, feel free to comment below. In the meantime, keep an eye out for part three of our comprehensive lighting breakdown!
Read Next: Want to explore how lighting transforms the mood of a scene?
Browse all lighting articles, from hard and soft light to color temperature, contrast, and key light setups.
Or return to the Cinematography section for lenses, framing, and camera movement techniques.
I just had a question about mixing colour temperatures. For instance if you are lighting the main subject or area in LED lights but you have some tungsten in the background blurred out, if I use the grey card on the subject and use as a custom white balance will this work in case the tungsten is being picked up too? Alternatively as I found the other day when filming some dance I was in a large dance studio with weird strip lights way up high So strangely dull although lit. I had to use the only things I had at my disposal, two LED soft box lights which did something but not a lot….
(another story trying to get a good depth of field for dancers moving back and forth with poor lighting! Another question on a different subject I guess. ISO seemed my only option which led me down a horrible path!)
In this scenario if I drop the grey card in the general dance area as there is movement will this get an overall white balance for me? I couldn’t turn off the main lights as the soft boxes weren’t powerful enough for the area or I didn’t have enough of them to do the job.
I would love to know your thoughts.
Hi Simon.
Thanks for reaching out.
When you mix two or more light sources with different color temperatures, the different color temperatures will blend and create new temperatures. So if you use a grey card or white card, just use it close to the subject/object you’re going to film, so you’re going to get the best value possible.
If you use a grey card, remember it should fill out the entire screen (or the required area – depending on your camera), when you set the color temperature in-camera.
Another way to go about it is to use a white card and then set the white balance in post-production using the white balance tools. I find this is to be a quick way to do it when I don’t have time for using color checkers boards and stuff. I simply dial in the white balance by eye to get in the vicinity (e.g. sunlight, cloudy, shadows, tungsten), and I have my subject hold up a white card, and then do the rest in post.
If you don’t know how to do the white card trick, have a look at the first video in this: https://filmdaft.com/best-free-tutorials-for-learning-color-grading-in-davinci-resolve/ It’s a DaVinci Resolve tutorial, but you can also do it in e.g. Premiere Pro.
As long as you get good skin tones, there is plenty of room to get creative. Sometimes you may want a warm glow on one side of the face of your subject. And even skin tones don’t have to be right all the time. Take a look at the green skin tones in The Matrix fx. It all depends on the content you’re shooting.
I don’t know if this answers your question? If not feel free to ask again 🙂
Best, Jan
Great info! Is their any benefit to getting a bi-color key light (where you can adjust color temperatures)? Thanks!
Hi Dustin.
Thanks for your question. Yes, there are definitely advantages to using a bi-colored light – that way you can dial in the exact color temperature you want. Fx you can warm up a scene, or you can create a nice warm backlight to separate the subject for the background.
But keep in mind, that some LEDs (panels typically) are constructed in such a way, that you have fx 256 white LEDs and 256 yellow LEDs (512 LEDs in total). And you change the color temperature by mixing (turning up/down) the white and yellow LEDs. This means that the maximum light output is created by only 256 LEDs.
If you bought the same LED panel with 512 white LEDs (daylight) + a 512 yellow LED (tungsten) panel, you’d get twice the power, because each light would benefit from 512 LEDs. But you’d be sacrificing the versatility of mixing the color temperature.
Also, you can often find a white panel that comes with a yellow panel (fx the first one here), which you can put in front of the white light to create the tungsten setting. Again, you can’t dial in the exact color temperature, but you get twice the power.
Best, Jan
Thank you for information!
Is any difference between grey or white side of card when setting white balance?
Thank you,
Argo
Hi Argo.
You can use both for setting the white balance, but the process is a bit different. I usually use the grey card ‘on set’ if I want to set the white balance in the camera – and the white side if I want to set it in post-production using the color picker tool in Premiere Pro. I’ve gone into this in more detail in this article: https://filmdaft.com/camera-settings-for-video-production/ (the last section).
I hope this answers your question? If not, feel free to ask again 🙂
Best, Jan
Thank you Jan!
read the other article, its great, but still little bit confused regarding the right choice of reference between white and grey card setting proper white balance. As I understood the article right, white card is suited more for white balance setting and grey card is more for shutter speed, right?
Regards,
Argo
Hi Argo.
I’m sorry you’re still confused. That means, that I haven’t done a good enough job of explaining it 🙂
In short, you can use both grey and white cards for setting the white balance.
Grey cards are often used for setting the white balance in-camera. I.e., you go to the custom white balance settings in your camera and take a photo of the grey card under the lighting conditions, you’re going to shoot in. That way the white balance will be set correctly, and it shouldn’t be necessary to correct the white balance in post-production (not much at least). Check your manual on how to set the custom white balance in your camera – or maybe see if there’s a guide on YouTube for your particular camera regarding this.
Grey cards are also useful for setting the right shutter speed if you’re a photographer. But since videographers often set the shutter speed to “double” that of the frame rate (fx if you’re shooting 25 fps, you’d set the shutter speed to 1/50), then I don’t find much use for this. I use an ND filter and the histogram or wave monitors instead.
White cards I find are best used for setting the white balance in post. I usually hold the white card before shooting a scene under the lighting conditions I want to use. So fx if I’m shooting an interview, I’ll have the person I’m interviewing hold the white card after I’ve set up the lighting. Then I know that I’ve got something complete white in the scene, that I can count on.
When I get back to Premiere, I set the white balance by simply choosing the white balance color picker (eye dropper) tool and click on the white card. That way the white balance is set correctly.
Check out this video by Curtis Judd to see how to set it in a Canon camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zya_8TBvctY
Check out this video by AdobeMasters on how to use the eyedropper tool in Premiere Pro to set the white balance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmapbJ_jQxo
Notice in the last video, that he uses the wall … but he can’t be totally sure that the wall is actually white (it might have some yellow tint to it fx). That’s why it is good to always use the white card and film it before a scene, so you know that you have something that is actually white.
I hope this helps? If not feel free to ask again 🙂
Best, Jan
Hello,
That’s a very helpful article. Thank you! I have a question that may or may not be related to this, but after quite a bit of searching, I landed here. (Wow, that sounds like the beginning of a spam comment, but it’s not!)
We’re recording instructional videos and the subject is using a Vibe Smartboard, which is basically a giant tablet. It’s working quite well, but it creates a pretty challenging lighting scenario.
The screen takes up the majority of the frame, so the camera adjusts to that color, but the rest of the scene is really, really yellow.
I assume that I can get some lights, turn off the overhead lights and use studio lights, but I’m wondering if I would need to set the color temperature of the studio lights to the screen. 6500K? Will that fix my problem?
Your help and expertise is much appreciated!
Hi Roger
Thank you for your comment, and sorry for my late reply.
When it comes to lighting, studio lights are always the better choice, as regular household lights can introduce a host of problems (from flickering to bad colors). If you search for “lighting kits” on this site, you’ll find articles on different purposes and budgets.
When it comes to the yellow shift, it could come from the overhead lights or from what’s going on on the screen. But it’s difficult to tell. – But mixed lighting scenarios are pretty common.
What I would do is simply get a white card and record a couple of seconds with that in the place where whoever is going to be on camera will be standing. Have the person hold it up towards the camera before a recording session.
Then go to your editing program of choice and pick the white balance color picker and click on the white card with the mouse. Then your color is automatically white balanced, and your subject shouldn’t look yellow.
Also, check out the answers I wrote to Argo here in the comment section. I think it can help you with your problem. If not feel free to reach out again.
Best, Jan