I got blue burnt

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danesch

Well-known member
Ok explain this one to me... I set up a shot to shoot Gov. Jeb Bush at a podium. They have a video projector shooting through his head and projecting in the back of him. I estimated how tall he was, (Jeb is about 6' something) and put one light at an angle as to not blow out the screen. I put a dichroic filter on the light to balance with the natural blueness of the projection. The lights were all out so I didn't have to worry about any tungsten spill. When I got it back his face looked perfect but the projection was green.

What the hell went wrong? The natural color of most monitors or projectors is blue. I have always shot them on a 3 filter. As a matter of fact when I shoot a computer I will pull up a page on the computer with white on it and balance on that. If I get a wide shot of the computer itself I will throw a blue light on it.

But what happened. Do some projectors emit a megenta color? (That's just a guess... i don't know what the oposite of green is).
 

Tippster

The Fly on the Wall
The problem is your initial assumption:

A projector is NOT a monitor.

Was this a video projector, or an old-school transparency projector? The latter uses quartz bulbs as a light source, so depending on your white balance the color will be off.

You may have been better served not to use a dichro on your light. If you had time to set up and access to the projector I would have mixed the lights on the screen and white balanced off that.
 

Tippster

The Fly on the Wall
Well, then, I would assume the color temp of the projector was set to something other than 5600K. My TV at home, and all the computer monitors I deal with, have a variable color temp setting.

I would have been burned just like you were. Whoever the A/V company was for that event should be informed as to the problem to keep it from being repeated.

But hey, in the F-State it'd be hard to find someone to give a damn. ;)
 

Videodoc

Well-known member
A lot of the medium and high end LCD and DLP projectors have a variable color temperature setting. Usually at least two settings like indoor/outdoor - not quite accurate but for the technically challenged. Some have several settings. I believe the default is usually 5600k, but nowadays you have to check with the A/V guy or find a way to check your balance to be sure.
 
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