Flashlight Filtration Guide

We all love LED flashlights—Coast Portland’s, in particular—but the one thing we’d like to change is their cool color temperature and the color cast they can leave when used for light painting. Well, guess what … we can change it, by using filters!

But which filters to use? Tim Cooper has written a three-part blog post titled “Level Up With Light Painting: Correcting the Color of Your Flashlight.”

Part I talked about the pros and cons of LED flashlights, color theory, white balance, testing your flashlight’s color and how to fashion your own custom filters. This all revolved shooting at Daylight white balance.
Part II followed up with how to filter Coast HP7R and HP5R flashlights to provide a neutral color when the white balance is set to 3200 K. This is a common setting for shooting in urban areas at night, as most streetlights and other city lights are rendered overly orange when white balance is set to Daylight.
Part III breaks down which filters to use with nine different white balance settings on your camera, according to test results from a Sekonic C-800 SpectroMaster Color Meter.

Our Flashlight Filtration Guide contains all the filter recommendations from Part III. Now no matter what common color temperature you shoot with at night, you can always get your color right.

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