How much blue light can the eye make white?

[grawis]

I have been trying to find some law of nature regarding at which color temperature the human eye no longer manages to "white balance".

Using television camera I have so far come to the conclusion that you never should adjust the cameras white balance higher than between 6000 and 7000 K. I mean, some times what you see outside is just blue, no matter how long you are staring in the air.

But does anyone know what the human eyes limit on color temperature is? I mean, if I am autobalancing the camera and getting 30 000 K, the picture I get does not include the same amount of blue as what I see standing there.

Ideas?

Christian Kråkenes, Norway

 

[Torus34]

The following site will provide some reference points.

http://www.sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm

My eyes can adapt to show white as white over almost the entire range. I suspect that the eye adapts better when the light follows the 'black body' radiation curve than when it is discontinuous.

 

[AluminumStudios]

I dont' know much about this particular topic, but it seems to me that general physics would say that as you pass the color temperature of blue you start neading towards the color temperature of the next color - ultraviolet which naturally our eyes can't see and our TVs, computer screens, photo printing can't produce. So I would assume that past 20K somewhere is the limit (on that side of the spectrum, on the other side there is going to be a near-infrared color temperature that our eyes aren't sensitive to.)

I may be wrong, I just thought it sounded interesting and wanted to chime in.