What is Color Temperature in Film?

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Published: September 15, 2019 | Last Updated: May 21, 2025

Got all that? Now let’s make sense of it, starting with…

Color Temperature

You may be thinking that lights are lights, that they’re used for brightness, and are all the same apart from that. Plot twist: you’d be wrong.

Different lights project a different hue of light. Why are streetlights so orange, while hallway fluorescents in schools and office buildings are so white? Why are some white Christmas lights yellow instead of white?

Because they have differences in what we call color temperature.

The temperature of color refers to the measurement of its hue. Different hues are considered to have different “temperatures.”

We use a numeric system of measurement called degrees Kelvin to quantify color temperature. The range of Kelvins can range from the low hundreds to 10,000.

Very orange-projecting lights, such as incandescent bulbs or firelights, will have a lower Kelvin rating, somewhere in the 3000 range and below. More blue lights, like daylight, will have a higher Kevin range, 6000+. Anything in between, like fluorescents, will be more neutral, white light.

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 simply transparent sheets of colored plastic that attach to the barn doors of lights and change the hue of the light.

Gels are perfect for changing the hue of lights, but they also have the added benefit of balancing the lights you already have. Let me explain.

Say you’re shooting a scene with daylight and tungsten, fluorescent and tungsten, or whatever combination of clashing light hues. Looking through the camera, your hues will look off, and nothing in the camera settings (which we will talk about later) can make them match.

Setting the camera to balance one light will make the other look even more extreme.

How do you get around this? You guessed it. Gels.

To avoid the problems of dual-color hues (unless you want them), slap a daylight blue gel on your tungsten light, effectively matching it to the sunlight in your shot. Then, set your camera accordingly, and voila, the lights all match and are balanced correctly.

Gels are very useful and often come preset with a Kelvin rating, so you know what the new temperature will be after you attach them to your light.

Gels also come in the color wheel of options besides blue and orange, allowing you to make some very Nicholas Winding Refn-esque neon shots. Best of all, gels are relatively inexpensive and reusable.

LEDs and Changing Hues

Thanks to advances in lighting technology, we don’t always have to use gels to alter the color temperature.

Many LED lights today come equipped with dials for brightness and color temperature. Crank the dials whichever way you need and adjust the Kelvin of your light.

This can save you time and let you match the color temperature with any other non-LED lights you may have.

LEDs also don’t run hot, so they’re safer than tungsten for setup and breakdown.

Color Temperature and Camera Settings

So, we understand color temperature and how it relates to lights, but how does it all relate to your camera’s setting?

When you find the color temperature setting on your camera, you will see a number measuring the temperature your camera is currently set at.

This measurement reflects the degrees Kelvin (the hue temperature) your camera uses to interpret the light in the shot.

A low Kelvin setting, something in the 3000K ballpark or less, will give the lighting in the image more of an orange hue, while a higher Kelvin setting, something 6000K or higher, will give the image a blue hue.

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.

No, color temperature adjustment is really for getting an image that looks as balanced (hue-wise) as possible. Which brings us to…

White Balance

When looking at the subject of your shoot, be it a person, a landscape, or an object, the colors might all line up from your perspective, yet look completely different in-camera.

Let me explain:

Say you’re shooting a dish soap commercial, and you’re emphasizing the cleanliness of the dishes that were just washed by your actor or actress. You want to slow-zoom on a pearly white set of plates. Voila, no grease, no oil, no stains. Fantastic.

But the image in your camera keeps coming out more brownish than you intended. The dishes aren’t sparkling white like they appear to your eyes. Why is that?

The short answer is that your camera is not white-balanced correctly, and the color temperature it uses isn’t lined up with the lights you’re using to illuminate your pristine plates.

Your brain is very good at filtering color hues affected by Kelvin’s different temperatures.

We know that white is white, whether illuminated by bright sunlight or evening streetlamps. But cameras are not as adept as we are and will not interpret the base color correctly without the proper setting.

This is where the term ‘White Balance’ comes from. It is, quite literally, telling your camera what white (and, by extension, every other color) should look like in the image. By white balancing the camera to offset any potential excess hue your lights may be giving off, you can filter those hues out, making white look white.

Is your image lit by hard blue LEDs? Crank up to 5000+ Kelvin and inject some orange into the image to balance it. Is the image too orange under those nighttime streetlamps? Go the opposite way and push that Kelvin down to add some blue.

White balancing is the first color correction you will make when shooting your media.

Unlike color grading, which is purposely adjusting the colors of your image for stylistic reasons,

White balancing corrects color imbalance, making color grading from a neutral image much easier in post-production.

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 Kelvins 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

What is a grey card? Well, just that, a gray card. But it’s much more useful than it seems.

A gray card is a solid reference point for setting your camera’s white balance.

It’s a middle-hue gray, which is easy for most cameras to interpret and doesn’t change much under different light sources.

To set a white balance, place the card in front of your camera and adjust your color temperature and brightness accordingly. Ensure the card catches the light the same way as your subject to mimic the lighting conditions as closely as possible to how they will fall on your subject.

Once the card is in place, tune your camera to custom white balance, adjust your color temperature to the best setting, and save the custom setting. Now, you’ll have it for the rest of the scene, and if you move lights around or use the same lights in a different setup, the white balance will be saved for easy choosing.

Most cameras have an auto white balance option, but in filmmaking, control is paramount, even over the most minuscule details. So, while auto is probably decent, making custom settings for different light types is more beneficial in the long run since you’ll be learning to understand how light and color temperature work.

Using White Balance for Style

I mentioned above that white balance is color correction, not color grading. It’s generally not adjusted for stylistic purposes (here comes the ‘but’), but art is nothing if not subjective, and if you’re looking for a more orange or blue hue in your image for aesthetic purposes, then go for it.

It is important to know the correct process of balancing and adjusting color temperature, however, because while editing software today is powerful and multi-faceted, you should save yourself time in post-production by doing everything right in production.

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 a look out for part three of our comprehensive lighting breakdown!