Do you know how to select the best Color Temp of Led Lights according to your outdoor photoshoot? This article explains in detail how to select it and to get professional results.
What is color temperature?
When shooting outdoors, lighting conditions can change from one minute to another, which poses challenges and requires strong skills and capable gear to deal with every change. The photographer needs to know what he is doing with his lighting gear, camera, lens, and positioning. If our lighting setup has an LED source, then another thing to take care of is the Color Temp of Led Lights.
This temperature, usually measured in kelvins, dictates how well you can create the desired ambiance in the final shot and has a big role in the aesthetic appeal of both videos and photos. For a quick recap, the Kelvin values for this color temperature range between 1000 and 10,000, where 1000 represents the warmest light in the spectrum and 10,000 is the coolest white light.
Color Temp of Led Lights:
If your LED light for outdoor use supports different color temperatures (which it should in 2025 industry standards), then knowing which color temperature to set for different scenes is crucial. As a general rule of thumb, the warm colors (2,700K - 3,000K) are used to enhance golden hour shots.
These color temperatures can create intimate portraits and add a cozy feel to your videos. You can set your Color Temp of Led Lights in between 2700 and 4500 K to match the ambiance of social gatherings, which is both inviting and warm.
The temperatures on the cooler side of the spectrum, i.e., 5,000K-6,500K, are used to create a sense of clarity in the scene and bring about spaciousness in the final shots. These color temperatures are great for portraying the crispness of winter scenes with vast landscapes.
They are also commonly used to create a modern and clean aesthetic look often used in advertisements and movie scenes. So, if clean shots with high visibility are in your mind, tune your LED between 5k and 6.5k.
Factors ConsideringColor Temp of Led Lightss:
It is worth mentioning that when shooting outdoors, you will face a problem of continuous change in the lighting at different times of the day. Meaning you will be needing to change your color temperatures accordingly. Other factors to consider are
1. Check background: The background needs to be taken into consideration, especially if you are in low light. The colors and materials in the background of an outdoor shoot have to be set accordingly with your color temperature. For example, if your background has trees and greenery, then the warm to neutral white light set between 2700K and 4000K on your LED light will enhance color richness.
2. Purpose of your lighting: What are you trying to achieve in an outdoor setting? Is it ambience or is it clarity-based shooting? Maybe someone just wants their Color Temp of Led Lights for task lighting, like barbecuing in open spaces or late-night volleyball. For such scenarios, you can tune to neutral to white lights ranging from 4000K to 5000K.
3. Consistency in colors: You need to have consistent color temperatures when shooting outdoors. You can't let one shot in a garden be with warm colors and others be cool after an hour. This is where having an LED light with adjustable color temperatures really helps, like the SIRUI C150X pocket light.
Designed to be as portable as possible, this light can be used to easily match the artificial light with the ambient light by adjusting the color temperature and brightness of its powerful 150-watt LED modules. This LED light is your perfect outdoor shooting investment thanks to its variable color temperatures, lightweight, and tons of ways to power it, including an adapter, a V-mount battery, a PD power supply, and a regular PD power bank. You can also hook it up with the H99 PRO battery grip to get almost one hour of outdoor operation.
And it works like a charm when it comes to balancing Color Temp of Led Lights in outdoor shoots. For example, you can easily tune it in between 2,700K and 3,200K after sunrise and before sunset to add that nice warmth and romantic feel. The same settings can be used during outdoor events like weddings. A highly recommended LED lighting option that beats the competition in every possible specification in its price point.