Color Scientist Explains the Problem with RGB Lights 

Mark Meerdam if you like this in-depth look at a topic i recommend Technology connections. he also did a video on this but also in-depth videos on other technology topics like cd’s laserdiscs.

You Just watch the wrong videos. This seems about average from what I've seen.

altaccout me?

I dunno what it is about it, but this video seems a bit slanted to me.

THE KING. Love your work, man!

thanks for tuning in! Please pass it forward. Tim is the real deal and there's a lot of misinformation out there even on the very high-end of filmmaking.

Great knowledge. I love you guys .

@@indymogul Agree with @Samuel Tabotta on how great the technical stuff is, as I mentioned above this opened my eyes to the fact that something I developed for lab use might have a use for film, and still camera photography :) If you want to talk about more in depth about it over DM on skype, Discord or some other app @ me and I can even cobble a larger version together of one, to send for you to do some testing and see if it is more useful than having to manually change gels since using RGB to create a gel effect for the camera seems to be out as a use case, at least till we get around to making LEDs that actually produce every spectrum say with my multi material nanotube with LED and other semiconductor crystal molecular arrays embedded in them for ultra high power laser diodes that have next to no heat generation (thus super efficient, to make hand held lasers and even bio-activated laser formation from say someones eyes, while giving perfect focus with out moving parts of the eyes, for those that have had to have cataract correction surgery. :)

@@ThomasAndersonbsf Did we watch the same video? I saw three minutes worth of content stretched over 18 minutes of improve. It was ridiculous.

@@recompile I saw 18 minutes of good information and 3 minutes of improv.

This shows that everything you hear on any other reviewer's videos is so uninformed

did you not have physics in school? We learned this in like 8th grade

Missed physics class in school?

@@Katze822228 - Bullshit. Your physics class did not cover this.

glad to hear it. Thanks for tuning in.

Lol me too. Were you filming the aputure light this location shortfilm?

I love your transparency, and how you encourage consumers to be more knowledgeable so they can understand why they want better gear.

It seems like "daylight" LED is mostly safe though. As long as the "daylight" isn't a result of RGB mixing?

@@norriscreation yes. Tungsten white LEDs are the best that the technology currently offers, but future tech like the EtherLED we showed is going to be just as good, if not better, than HMI to match daylight. Right now, daylight LEDs at their best are almost as good as tungsten LEDs. They differ in that they render subtle hue shifts and saturation increases with any colored objects that have blue wavelengths. That explains why it's upper 70s instead of 80s. You will also see potentially more issues when shooting with film with daylight and using daylight LED to match.

I didn't understand why RGB lights have this limitation. Does each node just deliver too narrow of a spectrum? And why would that be the case if we have LEDs that can reproduce a daylight spectrum pretty accurately to our eyes and the camera? I'm sure I still just need to learn some more about color science. Any in depth sources would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

@@ADD1770 yes - if you look at the yellow gel vs RGB yellow diagram towards the end, you can see how narrow these spectral fingerprints are. The green diode spectrum "misses" the orange spectrum, so you get mostly only red reflecting back. Daylight LEDs and RGBA units have more information in the spectrum to fill out the gaps. But they are still not perfect and can have gaps in the spectral output that our eyes can't see on a gray card, but we can see on certain colored objects. Or, we may not see an issue, but a camera may see more issues.

There is a lot of overlap. Studying light (the whole electromagnetic spectrum) is the most fantastic and amazing subect ever as far as I think. From the birth of our universe and then stars all the way to the way light shines off some water lillies waiting to be captured on canvass, LIGHT RULES!

Blueskin Blake Haha, although light studies don't intrigue me that much, it's cool that your're THAT interested :)

@@EddieKMusic thanks, I love to talk light, I start beaming with excitment!

@@EddieKMusic could not resist- apologies

@@blueskinblake9935 You just gave me a whole new section to go look for in the library ;)

CineLab: There was probably more info to be learnt that semester, though, so, that's on you.

@@Mew__ :/ putting the blame solely on a student for learning material poorly when profs and course materials are capable of sucking too is super reductive, dude.

@@sweetpeabee4983: Internet and international source material. That's how I study physics at uni.

Idk. Like, if something has the physical property that it only reflects blue light, even if it appears black in candle light, it seems plausible that you might still call it a blue object because it is still *capable* of reflecting blue light, just your eyes aren't seeing it in that light. But again, idk. This seems more a matter of philosophy than anything.

@@sweetpeabee4983 That's not what the OP said. Your perception of color will change when you do the right drug for example. Not because there is a different ratio of photon energies. There are Optical Illusions, but those tend to be mostly geometric, or for color using persistence of vision. So just keep looking and your perception of the color returns to normal.

@@sweetpeabee4983 you need photons for color, so in the dark the blue looks black because there are no photons, but the object will still reflect light as blue.

Thank you for this feedback! This is the exact realization we hope would happen.

You bet man. We had a lot of fun talking about this and Tim is incredible when it comes to his knowledge and passion for the topic. As for the Nova -- you can bet that everything you'll see from Aputure moving forward will be RGBWW at the very least. This is despite the very real cost of adding that extra W chip, even for our little lights like the MC and the Accent Bulbs.

@@chaopka I can't wait! Aputure just went to the next with this new technology. I love how I can use my vast array of photography Bowen's mount soft boxes and octabanks, and that Leko attachment tho. I look forward to LEDs that constantly improve the quality of light, (& increased output, but mostly quality). Thanks again!

You can still do a lot with RGBWW lights! The lesson is to test things out to understand for yourself and your workflow what will work for you.

Curtis, you're one of the greats when it comes to quality of knowledge on RU-vid.

What up Curtis! Been watching your content for a minute.

@@LuisFernandoImperator Thanks Fernando!

@@DoItWithDave Hey Dave - good to hear from you!

glad to hear it! Please definitely pass it forward.

You're welcome! Tim is an amazing and talented guy.

i always recommend a small packet of gels with my quasar qlion kit. it's important to still have accurate white light behind those gels too.

Maybe even near IR.

Check out the thumbnail for The Weird World in RGB by Technology Connections.

My Cinematography teacher was really emphatic on how to light darker skinned people properly. He said that cinema had done Black actors a serious disservice, and I would agree with that sentiment.

Our model didn't show, so we only went over the information that was in the image.

Black skin reflects light a bit more so you have to be sure red is represented adequately or you end looking jaundiced or ashy. Adding a oil based moisturizer allows for some interesting colour manipulation but yeah like you I'd need to see it done here. I think with Black skin you have to use shadow deliberately to get what you want. So casting colour is nice but not over exposing is key.

@@johnmcnally7812 Hurr durr black peepo is victimz That's gaslighting and it does a disservice to blacks.

@@FFFan3445 Nobody was trying to say it was intentional or some kind of conspiracy Most people (even professional photographers) dont fully understand how colour works and a halfassed job is still a disservice. If I tried to fix your car and broke it more, it doesnt matter if I did so intentionally, it is still a disservice.

so glad to hear it! Thanks for supporting and tuning into the show.

let's just say, this video came out of suffering similar experiences out of life, not out of theory. ;-)