Fluorescent or Tungsten

What is the advantages and disadvantages of tungsten compared to

fluorescent light systems?

The advantage of tungsten over fluorescent is <br>1. Power - Except for heavy duty pro units, fluorescents seem to be extremely low powered<br>2. Controllability - flat panel fluorescents can ONLY produce diffused lighting<br>3. Fluorescents are deficient in magenta and normally either need filtration or have magenta filtration included.<p>The advantage of fluorescents is that they are physically cool and that their overall colour temperature is similar to daylight.<p>IMO fluorescents have very little going for them compared to tungsten and tungsten have very little going for them compared to flash.<br>You may find this helpful http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BZLz

There are special photographic fluorescent lights available, with daylight colour balance. If you want to depict motion blur you cannot use flash. Tungsten has a different colour balance than daylight. There is some film available, but not much choice. You can set a digital camera for tungsten light. Alternatively you can filter the lights or the lens. Combining tungsten light with daylight will give strange colour casts, unless you filter the light.

You can always compensate for the color cast of tungsten light in photoshop if you have exposed all color chanels on film with some image information. You can also gel the lights to a daylight color temperature.

 

the only think I don't like about tungsten is heat, I sweat like a pig everytime I use those lights in small places.

 

 

Don't know why a lot of people find the color cast to be such a problem. I guess it is a problem if you are projecting slides, but

whenever you scan the film you can easily correct it.

 

I also like seeing what I'm about to photograph. Modeling lights are not of the same strenght as the actual flash of the strobe so the spill differently and have a different range and are not 100% acurate of what the light will look like.

 

And of course, you can always use tungsten or HMI with video or motion picture. You can use strobes only for photography.

Color cast if there is only one type of source is not a big deal...

 

It's when you are mixing sources that colors get wonky. Ie. A daylit interior with

flourescent fixtures around the perimeter... correcting one throws off the other...