Moonlight has a color temperature of 4100K, while sunlight has a higher color temperature of more than 5000K. But objects illuminated by moonlight don't look yellower to the eye. They look bluer.
This holds for indoor scenes (like my hall) and for outdoor. I find it counter. The color temperature used for the moon, or any night photo, is tricky, and just takes a little playing around.
For this image, I set the color temperature to 4,623, because I thought it just looked right. The CIE 1931 x,y chromaticity space, also showing the chromaticities of black-body light sources of various temperatures (Planckian locus), and lines of constant correlated color temperature Color temperature is a parameter describing the color of a visible light source by comparing it to the color of light emitted by an idealized opaque, non. In both images, the moon has a warm, white glow, around 4000k, and this is typically the color temperature of the light the moon reflects from the sun.
However, in film and art, moonlight is often blue. Even our general perception leads us to believe moonlight is blue. Image via Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Brothers).
What color is moonlight typically, and what other colors can moonlight look like from our perspective on Earth? If the yellowness or whiteness of light is based on the temperature of a glowing object, it would seem that the sun should have a whiter light than the cooler moon. However, the apparent color temperature of moonlight is actually cooler than in broad daylight. On a clear day, the sun shines at around 5000K.
I'm aware that actual moonlight is around 4100k, but in film, more blue tends to be added to achieve that Hollywood moonlight look. Does anyone know if there's a standard temperature range that tends to be abided by? Thanks! The color temperature of moonlight is around 4100 Kelvin, giving it a cool bluish. The color temperature of the light source, measured in Kelvin, is determined by the temperature of the blackbody located on the color chart in the same place as the radiation source under consideration.
The moon's phase doesn't directly impact the color temperature, but it does affect the amount of light in your scene. A full moon can act like a giant reflector, filling the sky with light and potentially altering the appearance of stars and the Milky Way. Adjust your color temperature accordingly to compensate for the additional light.