LED RGB Colour Mixing

[jexjexjex]

Hi Gang.

 

I've a wee show coming up soon which, because it's a fairly small venue and the lighting will be predominantly colour washes, I was thinking of taking a brave step and light it using only LED's - almost.

 

I understand that whilst RGB gives a reasonable mix of colours, many newer and higher-end fixtures are now using RGBA or RGBAW.

 

Although my own fixtures are 3w RGB items, I had though of adding some amber and white using some small fresnels (300W Minims) as a means of expanding the range of tones/colours available to me.

 

Assuming than I'm not completely barking up the wrong tree with this, what would be an appropriate shade of orange/amber to use and would I need to colour correct the white from tungsten to something cooler?

 

Thoughts, comments and opinions please.

[Guest lightnix]

I would not recommend using RGB systems for front light - you will get some very odd effects on coloured surfaces and skin tones, due to the low CRI.

 

 

 

e2a... Sorry I didn't read that quite correctly :D

 

You're (kind of) thinking along the right lines and I'd use a quarter, half, or maybe even full CTB from the Lee range (Nos 200 upwards) - to "blue up" the Minims, depending on how cold you want to go. You can still expect some unusual effects on coloured surfaces and clothes, though - although these may not prove unpleasant. You'll need to hang each pair of LED / tungsten sources as close together as you possibly can, to avoid multicolour shadow effects.

 

Hope that helps a bit better.

[jexjexjex]

Thanks for that Nick.

 

The show is in a church which has a 3 sided gallery around it. The LED's/Minims are to be mounted on stands in the gallery at either side of the "stage" (Area in front of the pulpit) to give cyc-ish and overheadish colour washes.

 

This should be OK in that the walls are white and the carpet is almost black

 

I'm planning to add a couple of S4s out front, with something like L151 in them for lighting faces.

 

If I'm still getting weird colours I may add another couple of tungstens to the top/sides.

[gyro_gearloose]

I don't know if this helps, but I believe the 'Magic Amber' in some RGBA LED lights works by using three DMX channels for red, green, and blue. The amber is automatically set to be at the same level as either the red or the blue, depending on which is lower.