Color temperature setting on camera and in Lightroom do not match

Question

I found that Lightroom shows different value of color temperature then was set on the camera body when the photograph was taken.
For example I have set up color temp. to 3700K for the given scene according to what the external color meter was showing (Sekonic Color meter C-500 Prodigi Color). It was 3700K, no color correction.
When I imported this Raw file into Lightroom the reading of color temp. was 3550 and -10 to green.
When I import the same file into Capture NX2 the temperature reading in the software is same as was set on the camera: 3700,0,0. Why this difference. Do I have some hidden setting somewhere in the Lightroom adjusting the CT during import into Lightroom?

Answer 1

>Hi Lee Jay, so if I understand you well I should ignore the number. But then how LR knows what are the neutrals? Is it calculating something like average tonality and then sets the white balance so that this average is neural gray like some simple cameras do?
Regardless what LR does it would be nice to see what was the camera set to when the shot was taken at least for reference purposes.
You see a different number because LR uses a different color temperature model than your camera. There are different color models in use and there is no standard unfortunately so I guess that the ACR developers simply chose one that they liked best. In the Lightroom model a certain color temperature has a different meaning than the same temperature in another model. The calculation between the two is trivial. So when you see value A in Lightroom it is exactly equivalent to value B in your camera. No analysis of your image happens, it is just doing a simple transform of your camera's measured temp and tint values into the system used in Lightroom.