What is the native color temperature of ALEXA’s sensor?
The short answer is that while ALEXA does not really have a ‘native’ color temperature, the point at which the lowest overall gain is applied to the red, green and blue pixels is at about 5600 degrees Kelvin, yielding the lowest possible noise in the image. However, since ALEXA has an amazingly low noise level anyway, the differences in noise between 3200K and 5600 K are so minimal as to not be of importance in most everyday shooting situations. So choosing the color temperature can be dictated by other factors, such as the cinematographer’s preference or the availability and/or cost of tungsten or daylight lighting instruments. For the long answer, we have to start with the birds and the bees, or in our case, with celluloid and silver halide crystals. Film stocks are balanced for either a tungsten (3200 degrees Kelvin) or a daylight (5600 degrees Kelvin) light source. To achieve this, film manufacturers carefully tune the chemistry of the individual color layers. The goal is that a gr
