Blue Light Filters

[PeterLL]

Hi all,
I have recently got lights for some underwater videography. The camera I use is a GoPro Hero 11, and I have two 120 degree wide-beam lights from AliExpress. They're approximately 10,000 lumens each and 5500k. While I own red filters for my GoPro, due to the small sensor and poor low-light performance, I prefer to leave it unfiltered and colour correct in post production.
However, I am considering obtaining blue filters for my two video lights, so that they match the ambient light in the background. I.e. instead of having a foreground that is illuminated full spectrum by my lights and a background that is blue ambient, the entire image is ambient blue meaning colour correction is applied to the entire image/video.
I would likely get some relatively cheap blue filter sheets to glue over my lights.
Is this recommended and what are peoples experience using a blue light (with or without a red filter - my plan is to go without).

 

[bvanant]

The problem is that the color temperature of the ambient light is very much depth dependent. I think this might get very tricky very fast.
Bill

 

[1fspeed]

Good color isn't easy. I use a grey card, manual white balance nearly every shot and still struggle to get color I love. Part of the problem for me is a Sony with 8 bit color that doesn't manual white balance well. Could also be the relatively low viz fresh water I dive

I've been using some Kraken blue filters... Kraken suggests a usable range of 4-12m. They're a partial solution. Perfect color in a fairly narrow depth range ( a couple meters). Outside of that either too blue or too red. I tend to keep the ambient light filters on below 5-8 meters, but most of what I shoot is 2-5m where a 1/2 power blue filter would be helpful.

You might find this interesting... "Matching Filter Techniques".

Also check out GoPro's Labs Firmware... I don't shoot one, but if I understand correctly it allows you to lock in the the WB balance at the beginning of a shot.

good luck!