Well I've always preferred working with daylight lights than tungsten as they're way more efficient and hence generate less heat. That means cooler talent, cooler me and less risk of fires. But there's another reason, less noise!
It turns out most camera's native white balance point is set to daylight. So when you use tungsten sources and white balance the camera the camera has to apply more gain in the blue and maybe the green channel. More gain means more noise in those channels.
This also explains why the more expensive cameras do rough WB via mechanically dialled in filters, less gain is used in setting the WB and therefore less noise.
Of course there's a bit of a double wammy here, most dark scenes are lit with low wattage tungsten lamps or candles, so not only is the camera short on light it's got more gain in one channel than the others.
Some interesting info on this here:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/ARTS/TESTS/HMI.HTM
HMI lighting (expensive) gets a good rap. I've so far finished a HMI China ball which is excellent, HUGE amount of light for very little heat. Next HMI project is to convert those 500W work light to HMI, more light, less heat, no worries about fire.
Even DIY'ing with HMI isn't cheap, lamp, ballast and socket cost around USD 200 for 150W, anything more is REALLY expensive.
I'll try to post construction pics of the China Ball over at the Madison Library shortly.
It turns out most camera's native white balance point is set to daylight. So when you use tungsten sources and white balance the camera the camera has to apply more gain in the blue and maybe the green channel. More gain means more noise in those channels.
This also explains why the more expensive cameras do rough WB via mechanically dialled in filters, less gain is used in setting the WB and therefore less noise.
Of course there's a bit of a double wammy here, most dark scenes are lit with low wattage tungsten lamps or candles, so not only is the camera short on light it's got more gain in one channel than the others.
Some interesting info on this here:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/ARTS/TESTS/HMI.HTM
HMI lighting (expensive) gets a good rap. I've so far finished a HMI China ball which is excellent, HUGE amount of light for very little heat. Next HMI project is to convert those 500W work light to HMI, more light, less heat, no worries about fire.
Even DIY'ing with HMI isn't cheap, lamp, ballast and socket cost around USD 200 for 150W, anything more is REALLY expensive.
I'll try to post construction pics of the China Ball over at the Madison Library shortly.