h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This could be perhaps a different approach to both the words 'color' and 'temperature'.

In color photography, you use the term color temperature to refer to the quality of the light source as it affects film's ability to register color properly.

For instance, indoor lighting has a lower color temperature than sunlight, so if you use regular (daylight) film inside without a flash, the color will be too brown. The flash of the camera is balanced to have a similar color temperature to daylight (before they could accomplish this they used blue flashbulbs to compensate). Tungsten film is balanced for indoor lighting.

Color temperature is expressed in degrees Kelvin.

Sample color temperatures:
Regular lightbulbs: 2900K
Photoflood lamps: 3400K
morning or afternoon sunlight: 5000-5500K
hazy sunlight: 5800K
overcast sky: 6700-7000K

Aaaaahhhh.... so *thats* what it is! The monitors at college have a setting for colour temperature, I looked at it, and was like, what? whats that for??

Thanks.

the term color temperature origins from thermodynamics: a certain color temperature is a parameter of the of the planckh function of a blackbody at a certain wavelenght. that is: if you have a blackbody that has a planck function with a maximum at lets say 450nm then the associated temperarure would be 5000 K.

*wonders why they neglected to tell her this in her quantum physics course*