The side by side of skin tone really made me want to get my oven mitts and my old tota out! Didn't know it could be that visible. Makes me think a lot about my studio setup where I always feel like the skin tones are a bit off, without any obvious reasons. Thank you!
Most cameras have an OLPF that filter out light below 400nm or above 680nm. The reason is simple... Light above 680nm will create IR pollution in your image, causing blacks to turn ruddy/purple... and light below 400 will cause IV contamination. That's why good ND filters also filter out those parts of the spectrum. In addition, light at 400nm is barely perceptible to Humans.. You can see it in a lab under completely dark conditions... but not in normal viewing conditions. The problem with the SSI measure is that it scores every part of the "visible" spectrum equally. There is a well defined curve for human sensitivity to different parts of the visible spectrum. It is similar to a bell curve that peaks at Green(555nm)and slopes down to near zero for 400nm and 700nm. This accounts for why a LED with a low SSI score of say 73 can look good in daylight, despite having a large spike at 450nm. Our eyes are simply not very sensitive to blue light, so blue will appear less bright and over-saturated then you would think..Now if that spike was at the Green wavelength the image would look terrible. In addition most cameras filter out below 400nm and above 700nm.. I would like to see an update of the SSI metric that reflects these realities.
Interesting, thanks for the insights. Even so, I was interested to see that the specific lights we used here with lower SSI scores rendered differently than the halogen or 90 SSI light.
I did a lot of Fashion work in the past and especially the red can become a problem causing hours of editing if they turn black fabrics into purple. As a photographer, from my experiences flash tubes or the glas dome in front of the tube filters this different from brand to brand. The differences are sometimes huge I was constantly searching for the ones cutting the red hard - to avoid this problem.
Thanks, it's crazy tungsten still wins in 2023! Basically the concept of colour temperature only works reliably with light sources that are near-ideal black-body radiators, like the sun at aprox. 6000K, or Tungsten at 3100K. With the nice colour checker you use however, it should be possible to correct nasty LED lights to a certain degree - but of course it's additional effort. Did you ever try using the automated colour checker correction options in DaVinci?
Thank you, Curtis, for another great and very helpful video. It’s time for me to update the LED lights in my studio because the ones I’m using I’ve had since 2016. I’m sure that, based on your video, they are, let’s just say, a bit “out of date.” I appreciate your efforts to educate us to make better videos.
Was looking forward to this video. Love it. SSI score is really important indeed. Very often when I'm studio working and I compare my (respected) LED's 2000 to 3200kelving mode to tungsten lights, the difference in color is so noticeable. Tungsten looks amazing. Led looks like Led. I am very intrigued by this new S series from Aputure... Hopefully all other manufacturers will begin to catch up with this. I'd also want the same technology to be mixed in with RGB lights. So we can have both the option of fine-tuning Green & Magenta but also have better SSI!
Thanks. I have been looking for a video that showed this exact comparison. Is there a reason Amaran did not use the dual blue in their recent c lineup? Once you see lights with such high SSI it’s hard to not want the same performance everywhere!
Hey Curtis, I just bought the Amaran 200d S, daylight only LED, would this be even closer to Tungsten and brighter as it only has to cover one light colour? Many thanks, love your content.
Thank you! LEDs are definitely great because of the power efficiency and reliability. I'd love to hear your opinion about using basic LED panels for things like RUclips, with some color correction and smoothing done in post (maybe creating a powergrade to adapt skintones and contrast for the light in Resolve)
The problem is that you can't fix colors in post which aren't reflected realistically. If for example a frequency in the spectrum is really missing (which you often see in fluorescent lights in parking lots etc.) you can't bring them up in post because they've never been there.
@@trizzleseven Would basic LEDs (like Neewer or Osaka) have some severe problems regarding skin tones or lighting, if used with diffusion and 3 point lighting?
@@jayforcinema It has nothing to do with diffusion or your setup and it's hard to predict a certain brand without measuring it. First of all I would try to not mix up different brands on one shoot unless you have a color meter and the fixtures allow to tune whitebalance and especially green-magenta shift (tint). I think as mentioned in the video: It depends on the style and the outcome. With most of the commonly used COB-LEDs which are around for some time now (Aputure, Nanlite, etc.) you'll get a color rendition which is good enough that you can fix minor issues in post for something like interview setups etc.
I was happy to see that the Amaran scored so well because I’ve been using that 200 for my work. I’ve pretty much gone all-in with Amaran/Aputure because of the Sidus Link app.
LEDs have improved a lot. I shoot a lot of music videos and I know people whi have shot videos lit only with LEDs. The colour isn't as good, but they can fix that in post. In another few years I can see LEDs becoming industry standard.
I could be wrong but my theory is that today’s camera sensors are tuned to daylight so I shoot my interviews around 5500k. Maybe I should break out the Arri Kit just to see.
If you go strictly by SSI scores, the Prolycht was about the same, maybe a little lower at 3200K on SSI. Also, incidentally, Prolycht was bought by Aputure.
A Question.. In my city there are very cheap and low quality LED lights. Forgest about LEDs u showed, not available here. However, i have a 500 watts Tungsten light. I think tungsten is good, what u think?
Thank you for this video. Question: Is it physically possible to get high color accuracy with an LED light with an 86 SSI rating if you use a quality color chart and color correcting software? Or can some color tones be simply lost forever if not initially captured?
Curtis, it seems like the color rendering errors are a result of using the preset white balance settings in the camera. If I were to set a custom WB using a grey card, would that negate any rendering errors?
Not yet, the custom white balance algorithms are not that sophisticated. They can adapt for wider, general balance issues, but they’re not particularly “high resolution” in terms of the correction they apply. At least that’s my experience.
Last year at NAB I asked all the major lighting fixture manufactures about tungsten lighting fixtures. None of them are still manufacturing tungsten fixtures except maybe for some specialty fixtures used as practical lights. So if you want tungsten lights, you have to buy used fixtures.
Hey Curtis. Thank you for the great info. I have a kinda weird request. Can you take your Sekonic and measure the Kelvin CCT of the daylight outdoors clear sunny day? I am experimenting with the my new Amaran 200x S. I'm just trying to get a baseline with my color meter. It's a Minolta II color meter and my best friend has one also and measures pretty much the same as mine, 4450. So I bought this cheap $20 color meter meant for Greenhouse enthusiasts and it measures 5450. No one around here has a Sekonic so I was just hoping you could measure the outdoor light for me. Please!!!!
So my gut was right, going with the amaran xS line. Very insightful video. This is really useful information that I sadly haven’t seen before. Great work and I hope I see more videos comparing lights. It helps greatly when choosing lights and can help you understand where your color issues might come from.
Hey! I'd love to pick up an Aputure P300C Panel at some point, is that fairly color accurate? I want to use it to film paintings being painted so good color accuracy is important.
@@John-e4p1x can you be more specific as to which new lights? There have been a few recently released. I was also asking about the P300C as it is RGB too and a panel design built a little more durable.
Like many other LEDs, the P300C comes in around 85 SSI at 3200 Kelvin and 74 SSI (or thereabouts) at 5500 Kelvin. So that’s pretty good if you can use it at 3200K. But I’d you want the best in color accuracy, I haven’t found anything better than the Amaran x S lights or good old halogen lights.
Something that would interest me is how and why your videos always look so dark and greyish. i triggers me to turn up the brightness of my phone but than i realise that its already at 100% :D it is an iphone 13 max
Could be an issues with your phone. I have an iPhone XS and no issues. Colors looks great and the shadows aren’t lifted or washed out like some other RUclipsrs like to do. Plenty of contrast
@@curtisjudd would be interesting what the differences are. i was thinking about it again to find better words and i think it is like there is some mist. foggy somehow :D @_gregvalencia i dont think so. then i would see it everywhere else
If they're using 2 blue LED chips to dial down the blue and get to the violets, then maybe we need 2 amber chips so we can punch in on the orange and reduce the yellow to get mid 90 SSI scores.
I appreciate your effort to educate people on lighting equipment.
Thanks, Victor.
Cutis is such a great source of reliable, useful, information. Thank you Curtis!
Thanks 👍
Nice side by side examples. Definitely looking to get some 200xs to flood my classroom studio space.
👍
The side by side of skin tone really made me want to get my oven mitts and my old tota out! Didn't know it could be that visible. Makes me think a lot about my studio setup where I always feel like the skin tones are a bit off, without any obvious reasons. Thank you!
👍
Most cameras have an OLPF that filter out light below 400nm or above 680nm. The reason is simple... Light above 680nm will create IR pollution in your image, causing blacks to turn ruddy/purple... and light below 400 will cause IV contamination. That's why good ND filters also filter out those parts of the spectrum. In addition, light at 400nm is barely perceptible to Humans.. You can see it in a lab under completely dark conditions... but not in normal viewing conditions. The problem with the SSI measure is that it scores every part of the "visible" spectrum equally. There is a well defined curve for human sensitivity to different parts of the visible spectrum. It is similar to a bell curve that peaks at Green(555nm)and slopes down to near zero for 400nm and 700nm. This accounts for why a LED with a low SSI score of say 73 can look good in daylight, despite having a large spike at 450nm. Our eyes are simply not very sensitive to blue light, so blue will appear less bright and over-saturated then you would think..Now if that spike was at the Green wavelength the image would look terrible. In addition most cameras filter out below 400nm and above 700nm.. I would like to see an update of the SSI metric that reflects these realities.
Interesting, thanks for the insights. Even so, I was interested to see that the specific lights we used here with lower SSI scores rendered differently than the halogen or 90 SSI light.
I did a lot of Fashion work in the past and especially the red can become a problem causing hours of editing if they turn black fabrics into purple. As a photographer, from my experiences flash tubes or the glas dome in front of the tube filters this different from brand to brand. The differences are sometimes huge I was constantly searching for the ones cutting the red hard - to avoid this problem.
Thanks, it's crazy tungsten still wins in 2023! Basically the concept of colour temperature only works reliably with light sources that are near-ideal black-body radiators, like the sun at aprox. 6000K, or Tungsten at 3100K. With the nice colour checker you use however, it should be possible to correct nasty LED lights to a certain degree - but of course it's additional effort. Did you ever try using the automated colour checker correction options in DaVinci?
Yes, it helps but isn’t perfect. Nevertheless, saves time for most.
Thank you, Curtis, for another great and very helpful video. It’s time for me to update the LED lights in my studio because the ones I’m using I’ve had since 2016. I’m sure that, based on your video, they are, let’s just say, a bit “out of date.” I appreciate your efforts to educate us to make better videos.
👍
Was looking forward to this video. Love it.
SSI score is really important indeed.
Very often when I'm studio working and I compare my (respected) LED's 2000 to 3200kelving mode to tungsten lights, the difference in color is so noticeable. Tungsten looks amazing. Led looks like Led.
I am very intrigued by this new S series from Aputure... Hopefully all other manufacturers will begin to catch up with this. I'd also want the same technology to be mixed in with RGB lights. So we can have both the option of fine-tuning Green & Magenta but also have better SSI!
👍
Thanks. I have been looking for a video that showed this exact comparison. Is there a reason Amaran did not use the dual blue in their recent c lineup? Once you see lights with such high SSI it’s hard to not want the same performance everywhere!
Good question, probably to keep costs down and because they may see the C lights more as effects vs key lights.
Hey Curtis, I just bought the Amaran 200d S, daylight only LED, would this be even closer to Tungsten and brighter as it only has to cover one light colour? Many thanks, love your content.
More output, yes, and I’d have to check, but I believe it also uses the dual blue chip to achieve SSI scores near 90.
@@curtisjudd Thanks for your reply! To my eyes it looks pretty awesome so far.
Very informative and helpful thread, thank you so much much appreciated.
Thanks a ton for this... It's wayyyy above my needs but is very useful for me to know and ATTEMPT to understand...
🙏
Thank you! LEDs are definitely great because of the power efficiency and reliability. I'd love to hear your opinion about using basic LED panels for things like RUclips, with some color correction and smoothing done in post (maybe creating a powergrade to adapt skintones and contrast for the light in Resolve)
Fine choice for RUclips videos. If you can achieve a look you’re happy with, than stick with it. 👍
The problem is that you can't fix colors in post which aren't reflected realistically. If for example a frequency in the spectrum is really missing (which you often see in fluorescent lights in parking lots etc.) you can't bring them up in post because they've never been there.
@@trizzleseven Would basic LEDs (like Neewer or Osaka) have some severe problems regarding skin tones or lighting, if used with diffusion and 3 point lighting?
@@jayforcinema It has nothing to do with diffusion or your setup and it's hard to predict a certain brand without measuring it. First of all I would try to not mix up different brands on one shoot unless you have a color meter and the fixtures allow to tune whitebalance and especially green-magenta shift (tint). I think as mentioned in the video: It depends on the style and the outcome. With most of the commonly used COB-LEDs which are around for some time now (Aputure, Nanlite, etc.) you'll get a color rendition which is good enough that you can fix minor issues in post for something like interview setups etc.
@@jayforcinema agreed with @trizzleseven, if you go with one of the mid-range brands like Amaran, Aputure, Nanlite you’re probably close enough.
I was happy to see that the Amaran scored so well because I’ve been using that 200 for my work. I’ve pretty much gone all-in with Amaran/Aputure because of the Sidus Link app.
👍
I own the exact tungsten light that you used in this video, does the Amaran 200x it's brighter on terms of output or both are the same?
The 200x S can output a little more than the Tota.
Thank you for letting me know. I'm thinking of buying the Amaran 200x to add to my lighting kit.
LEDs have improved a lot. I shoot a lot of music videos and I know people whi have shot videos lit only with LEDs. The colour isn't as good, but they can fix that in post. In another few years I can see LEDs becoming industry standard.
👍
So yeah, Curtis is a beast with his info, a beast with his videos, and then when it cuts to the product shots he has these delicate arms and hands!!!
LOL! Those hands belong to Emma, my producer.
I could be wrong but my theory is that today’s camera sensors are tuned to daylight so I shoot my interviews around 5500k. Maybe I should break out the Arri Kit just to see.
The color processing can be adapted to various color temps. Unless there’s something inherent in filters some camera use on their sensors?
Didn't you test that Prolycht 675 already with RGBACL is it different from the 60c in replicating tungsten
If you go strictly by SSI scores, the Prolycht was about the same, maybe a little lower at 3200K on SSI. Also, incidentally, Prolycht was bought by Aputure.
A Question.. In my city there are very cheap and low quality LED lights. Forgest about LEDs u showed, not available here. However, i have a 500 watts Tungsten light. I think tungsten is good, what u think?
Yes, tungsten is good if you have enough power for it.
Thank you for this video. Question: Is it physically possible to get high color accuracy with an LED light with an 86 SSI rating if you use a quality color chart and color correcting software? Or can some color tones be simply lost forever if not initially captured?
If parts of the spectrum are missing, it is hard to add them in post.
Great video! A complex topic well explained.
🙏
LED lighting has certainly come a long way!
Indeed!
Curtis, it seems like the color rendering errors are a result of using the preset white balance settings in the camera. If I were to set a custom WB using a grey card, would that negate any rendering errors?
Not yet, the custom white balance algorithms are not that sophisticated. They can adapt for wider, general balance issues, but they’re not particularly “high resolution” in terms of the correction they apply. At least that’s my experience.
Thanks for the education Curtis! Very interesting info!
👍
Last year at NAB I asked all the major lighting fixture manufactures about tungsten lighting fixtures. None of them are still manufacturing tungsten fixtures except maybe for some specialty fixtures used as practical lights. So if you want tungsten lights, you have to buy used fixtures.
In California I can't even buy incandescent light bulbs with more than 40W output because they're illegal, lol
They’re becoming a rarer option by the day.
Arri still produces a huge range of Tungsten Fresnel lights as of 2023.
@@tom_k_dnot to mention Mole-Richardson!
Hey Curtis. Thank you for the great info. I have a kinda weird request. Can you take your Sekonic and measure the Kelvin CCT of the daylight outdoors clear sunny day? I am experimenting with the my new Amaran 200x S. I'm just trying to get a baseline with my color meter. It's a Minolta II color meter and my best friend has one also and measures pretty much the same as mine, 4450. So I bought this cheap $20 color meter meant for Greenhouse enthusiasts and it measures 5450. No one around here has a Sekonic so I was just hoping you could measure the outdoor light for me. Please!!!!
That totally depends on the time of day and day of year. Daylight color literally changes through the day.
And as you suggest, latitude.
Thanks for your reply. More info has been sent. You have a great channel!
I dont miss baking under tungsten lights;)
LOL! It might be nice in my unheated basement in the winter. 😉
Very useful!😊👍
👍
So my gut was right, going with the amaran xS line.
Very insightful video. This is really useful information that I sadly haven’t seen before.
Great work and I hope I see more videos comparing lights. It helps greatly when choosing lights and can help you understand where your color issues might come from.
👍
Thanks for perspective, Curtis. I think LED for me. 💛🙏🏽
Me too. 👍
What kind of gel were you using to light the background wall? Looks very nice!
👍 ruclips.net/video/wMcduDNV-6k/видео.html
When does this new tech trickle to the Aputure LightStorm series?😉
Hopefully soon!
Tons of useful information. Thank you for the video!
🙏
Hey! I'd love to pick up an Aputure P300C Panel at some point, is that fairly color accurate? I want to use it to film paintings being painted so good color accuracy is important.
Well for one he just told you how good the NEW budget amaran lights are... so get them and a diffuser.
@@John-e4p1x can you be more specific as to which new lights? There have been a few recently released. I was also asking about the P300C as it is RGB too and a panel design built a little more durable.
Like many other LEDs, the P300C comes in around 85 SSI at 3200 Kelvin and 74 SSI (or thereabouts) at 5500 Kelvin. So that’s pretty good if you can use it at 3200K. But I’d you want the best in color accuracy, I haven’t found anything better than the Amaran x S lights or good old halogen lights.
@@curtisjudd Thanks a lot for the reply! Very much appreciated. I ended up getting a 200x S and a P60c to compliment it over the single P300c.
Something that would interest me is how and why your videos always look so dark and greyish. i triggers me to turn up the brightness of my phone but than i realise that its already at 100% :D it is an iphone 13 max
Could be an issues with your phone. I have an iPhone XS and no issues. Colors looks great and the shadows aren’t lifted or washed out like some other RUclipsrs like to do. Plenty of contrast
Perhaps I can do a high key lighting design in an upcoming video and see if you prefer that.
@@curtisjudd would be interesting what the differences are. i was thinking about it again to find better words and i think it is like there is some mist. foggy somehow :D
@_gregvalencia i dont think so. then i would see it everywhere else
@@tentimes1857 I use a light diffusion filter but that does not make the colors gray, it diffuses the light and gently lifts the shadows.
@@curtisjudd i see. thank you 😊
If they're using 2 blue LED chips to dial down the blue and get to the violets, then maybe we need 2 amber chips so we can punch in on the orange and reduce the yellow to get mid 90 SSI scores.
Maybe!