Best color temperature for skin tone rendering on video?

I am looking for daylight color temperature bulbs for use with video production. Which color temperature option among 5000K, 5600K and 6500K will produce the best and most natural skin tone?

When it comes to skin tones, the most important factor is the color rendering index (CRI) and R9 value of the light source. As long as the color rendering values are sufficiently high, color temperature is actually of relatively little importance.

Natural daylight can shift significantly in color temperature depending on the weather, time of day, season and other factors. Therefore, camera systems have been developed around this expected variability and you should not see any significant differences in skin tone color rendering, as long as you are using a high CRI light source.

Video cameras and post-production software are both able to perform color temperature calibrations very well, without any loss of color accuracy. You will most likely see this calibration setting called "white balance," with options such as incandescent, direct sunshine, overcast daylight, etc.

Keep in mind that unlike color temperature, there is no way to calibrate or compensate for a low CRI light source, especially for images with rich color such as skin tones. Color temperature adjustment is called white balance, because it is quite accurately the process of balancing relative amounts white light. Specifically, white balance adjustment involves modifying the relative amounts of yellows and blues that make up an image's composition.

Low color rendering, on the other hand, indicates a complete deficiency in certain wavelength bands (such as deep reds). As a result, no amount of calibration can make up for a fundamental lack of certain wavelengths in the light source.

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Video & cinematography

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