What Colour Temperature Means for What You Shoot
Colour temperature describes whether a light source looks warm or cool, measured in kelvin. Household bulbs sit around 2700K and read as orange; midday daylight sits near 5600K and reads as blue by comparison. The number is only useful relative to the other lights present, because a camera can be balanced to one of them.
That last constraint is the whole practical problem. A room lit by a window and a tungsten lamp contains two temperatures at once, and balancing for either leaves the other visibly wrong, which is why mixed lighting is the fault that shows up in student work most consistently. What should never reach the published cut is manufacturer specification: named fixtures, CRI figures, and gel numbers date quickly and vary by supplier.
The template traces the light through seven scenes: one on what kelvin measures and why higher means cooler, two on the common sources and where they sit on the scale, one on white balance and what the camera is being told, two on mixed lighting and the two ways to resolve it, and one on the deliberate use of temperature for mood.
