Absolutely, the way each medium reacts to color temperature can shift your whole lighting strategy. With 35mm film, you’re often working with a bit more forgiving color shift—you can let a warmer tungsten look sit a little longer before it becomes too saturated, and you have the flexibility to push or pull the color balance in post with film stock emulation. That means you can be a bit more adventurous with your gels and can even rely on the film’s natural warmth to soften a model’s skin tone. Digital sensors, on the other hand, lock in color temperature more rigidly. They’re very precise, so a slight mismatch between your light source and the white balance can show up as a noticeable cast. That pushes me to set up a consistent lighting rig—usually a mix of daylight-balanced LEDs and a controllable tungsten or sodium lamp—so I can dial in the exact temperature before the shoot. I also keep a set of gel kits handy so I can tweak on the fly, but I avoid relying on the sensor’s “intuitive” response to color; it’s a clean slate that demands deliberate control. So in practice, film gives me a little leeway to play with color warmth on set, while digital forces me to lock everything in at the source. Both have their charms, but they shape how I stage and adjust the light for each look.

I’ve actually run a few scans just for that reason. The spectral camera lets me see how Tri‑X reacts to each gel, and I can map the exact tonal shift before I even touch a flash. It turns the guessing game into a data‑driven tweak, which is exactly what keeps the lighting precise on a set.