Okay, which company's 5500K fluorescent bulb is really the right color?

[Matthias Martin]

I once had a chat with our veteran cinematographer and he told me that the fluorescents to go with were these:
http://www.true-light.eu/ENG/
If I remember correctly he was referring to their ability to mix well with daylight. They are made actually for ergonomical reasons and at least the spectrum diagrams look pretty nice. They also cost about twice as much as regular ones.
Has anybody on reduser used these?

 

[joshua csehak]

Here are the results of a few tests I did. NB: I did this when the bulbs didn't have a lot of hours on them, maybe 20 or so. I should do it again soon. The Kino's are Kino brand for my Diva 4-bank.

1. You can see from the first one that Kino's 29k bulbs are spot on.

2. Rating the 29k at 32k yields pretty much what you'd expect.

3. My Lowel Pro-Light is also spot on.

4. Kino's 55k bulbs however, aren't so accurate.

5. This is what it should look like.

 

[joshua csehak]

1. Compare that to the Lowel 65 watt CFL at 55k.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/518059-REG/Lowel_X1_65_X1_65_65_Watt_120_Volt.html

2. Or the Lowel Pro-light with a full CTB (apparently set on spot).

(For the record, I'm not 100% sure what lamp I used with the Pro-Light, but I'm 99% sure it was this one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/610266-REG/General_Brand_GCA_GCA_LAMP_250w_120v_.html)

 

[joshua csehak]

But back to the Kino's.

1 and 2. The 55k bulb rated at 65k and 70k. Now we're talking.

3 and 4. But myself, I like to set the camera to either 29k, 32k, or 55k and use gels for anything else. So here's the Kino rated at 55k with 1/8 CTO and 1/4 CTO. As you can see, using 1/4 CTO is the same as rating the camera at 70k. Using 1/8 CTO gives you an image a bit cooler than rating the camera at 65k. I'd put it at 62k. Any of those four looks good to my eye. Depends on the mood of the scene, if you want it a hair warmer or cooler. And tiny shifts like that can be changed in Color, even if you're shooting on a DSLR

Conclusions: I wonder if it's harder for manufacturers to mimic daylight than tungsten? All the more reason to be impressed by that Lowel CFL. I got some in a package with a Rifa when I was working at an agency and never used them, but then got some for myself when I needed something with a lot of light that I could use to augment daylight indoors, for just a bit of fill and stuff. Really work great. Also good in a china ball (they have edison bases). There's an even more powerful one that's a bit longer that I got, but I haven't done a color test on it.

More conclusions: I need to fix that spot on my ceiling.