Set Lighting Technician's Handbook, 4th Edition

CHAPTER

Fluorescent lights

9

At one time, cinematographers regarded fluorescent lighting as a minefield of photographic headaches, and virtually incompatible with motion-picture photography. Fluorescents were associated with ghoulish green skin tones, poor color rendering, anemic light output, noisy humming ballasts, and shutter speed restrictions (the same as HMIs with magnetic ballasts).

In the 1980s, confronted with the inevitable need to shoot under fluorescents, many gaffers put together their own fluorescent systems. They wired newly available solid-state ballasts to kluged lamp harnesses, and sought out new commercially available tube designs that provided a better color spectrum. Color correction gels were developed for a ...