Light temperature measurement

[millan]

Hi folks,
is it possible to use in some way a spectrometer ColorMunki Photo to find out the ambient light temperature? I use to have a LED lamp turned on during editing, which has several different color temperature modes. Unfortunately none of them is specified in the user manual. I would like to pick up just the one being closest to the daylight (5500 K) temperature. Any idea? Many thanks in advance.

 

[Kathode-Ray]

I think the sensor itself is probably suited for the job, but you need the proper piece of software that has this function.

As an alternative, how about if you light a greycard with your lamp and then take a picture of it. Then use the WB eyedropper in Lightroom or any other editing software to determine the white balance?

 

[KBStudio]

Best option is to buy a used Minolta Color Temperature meter. As few people use them anymore, you will probably find one for virtually nothing. They are very accurate and sophisticated. I have kept mine knowing that at some point I would need to determine exactly the color temperature of some light source.

 

[privatebydesign]

Easiest route is to fix your camera at 5500K and take a picture of a styrofoam food container, or cup, with a flash, then take a series of pictures with no flash of the same container under your lamp with the various settings. Then open all images in your chosen editor with the same settings, the one from the lamp that is closest to the flash picture is the temp closest to 5500K.

 

[Zeidora]

In some camera bodies, you can set color temperature manually. Take a bunch of images at different camera color settings of a white piece of paper or neutral grey card board, then check in photo-editing software with a large pixel size probe the RGB values: neutral grey they are all the same.

Color meters for next to nothing? V2 runs around $250, V3 at $4-600. Still half price than what it was new (~1K). I keep my V3 around.