Let's take a look at the five reasons why you should own a color meter, and the two
reasons why you don't.
The lesson's about to start, but you better jump over really quick to theslantedlens.com
and sign up to win this Tamron 85 millimeter 1.8 lens.
Get over there.
Hi, this is JP Morgan.
Today on the Slanted Lens, we gonna take a look at the five reasons you should use a
color meter, and the two reasons why you probably don't.
You'll be shocked how this little triangle, the Illuminati color meter, solves all seven
of 'em.
Shock and awe!
Look at that!
Shocking!
Number one, use a color meter to measure the color temperature when you're shooting outside
natural light to get the correct white balance.
Regardless of the situation you're in, color can pollute your scene from anywhere.
It drives me crazy when I see this Ashen looking people, that just are too blue.
They're in the shade, and the shade is very blue.
Or you got the grass, it reflects up in a person's face.
You got all those green that reflects onto their face.
Or you got a building across the street that reflects a red or a yellow, or some color
into the person, even though they're in the shade and they think they're okay.
Outside in a natural environment, there's light and there's all kinds of color being
bounced around everywhere.
A quick color meter reading, it'll give you the right white balance.
Your skin color's gonna look good, and it gives a great place to start.
So there's number one.
Number two, when you're shooting inside using the practicals in the room, you really need
a color meter.
Every single light in that room has a different color balance.
You've got a tungsten that's going to be more like 4000.
You've got sunlight coming through this, more like 53 or 56.
You've got different color balances on each light fixture in the room.
So you take a meter reading, it says, "When I mix all this together, I get about 4800
degrees," or whatever that maybe.
Can you take all this color balances, mix 'em together and come up with what is best
for your skin tone in that situation?
Number three, when you're using LEDs on location, you gotta match those to the practicals in
the room.
You just simply take a meter reading of the practicals in the room, and that tells you
the white balance you can set your LED at, it's a by-color to that right white balance.
Set your camera to that same white balance, and you're ready to shoot.
One of the things that is just a pain to have to correct afterwards is a color cross-over.
Those you got a certain color in the background and a different color on your person, or you
got two different color balances going on the same images.
It's just a pain to correct afterwards.
It's much better to clean it up beforehand, and move forward.
All of these things are based upon what you like creatively.
You may love a green light in the background, there's nothing wrong with that.
But using a color meter allows you to make that decision and not allow the situation
to make you have to make that decision.
Or you just simply screw up and miss it.
Number four, you can test all of your lights to make sure they're all consistent with one
another.
Today LEDs are all over the place.
You have green, you got magenta, you got blue.
I mean, they're all over the place.
With a color meter, you can take a reading on each of your lights.
It'll even tell you the gel that you need to get to put on that light to be able to
neutralize it to give you a clean 53 or 56, depending on how you wanna set your lights.
This is really important when you're shooting something like a white background.
You can throw one LED up over here in a different layer, and they have different colors.
And all of a sudden, the background goes from green to magenta.
In the background you want it all to be the same color.
So using the color meter, you can test each light, make sure they all have the same output.
A good example of this is when you ran HMIs.
Sometimes a bulb on an HMI can start to...as it gets old, have a different color cast.
It starts to shift.
So you're gonna wanna test with your color meter, correct it with a gel to get it back
to the right color balance, and make sure it matches all your other lights.
When you're renting lights, it's always important to check all the lights to make sure the color
balance is good on each of 'em.
Number five, for all you still shooters out there.
A good color meter's going to measure the color of the strobe, and you can measure the
color of the ambient.
Now, if you have to make corrections to your strobes so it'll match the ambient, set your
camera on the right white balance.
That's gonna give you a beautiful image.
You won't get a color cross-over.
That's not easy for me just because they've gotta measure the color of the strobe when
that flashes.
But a good color meter's gonna do that.
So this little device, the Illuminati, does all five of the things we've talked about,
and it solves the two problems that people don't buy a meter for.
Number one is, it is very inexpensive.
It is $300.
It's Bluetooth compatible, So it's sending information to your phone where you can see
exposure.
You can change exposure and see the color readings.
It allows your phone to be part of the process.
So it's not as expensive.
And secondly, that makes it very easy to use.
Put it on sets, so your reading's on your phone.
It will track the light as it goes down at sunset.
It just does all those things seamlessly with your phone and makes it very simple to use
on set.
So getting now to this Kickstarter campaign.
So you can get this strobe/flash meter/color meter all in one for $200.
If you missed that, getting a $300 is still an incredible deal to be able to make a color
meter part of your workflow.
I would not hesitate.
I would get immediately over to the Kickstarter campaign and sign up to get your Illuminati
meter.
The link is in the write up below, so get over there, sign up for you meter, it's gonna
change your workflow.
So keep those cameras rolling.
Keep on clicking.
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