Flash gels / filters - advice needed

Mike_J_Smith

Mike_J_Smith

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I was lucky enough to be given a full Lee Filter sample pack by Dean (DpM here – Cheers buddy).

However, there is almost too many of them! I know that there are some standard ones that are used in standard conditions, but I must confess I have no idea what they are and when to use them :bonk:.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a general guide for using gels / filters on flash?

Cheers, Mike
 
Color Correction gels work like this.

Full CTO (converts 5500K to 2900K)
1/2 CTO (converts 5500K to 3800K)
1/4 CTO (converts 5500K to 4500K)
Full CTB (converts 5500K to 7800K)
1/2 CTB (converts 5500K to 6400K)
1/4 CTB (converts 5500K to 5800K)
Full Plusgreen (converts 5500K to roughly match fluorescent)
1/2 Plusgreen (converts 5500K to roughly match fluorescent)
1/4 Plusgreen (converts 5500K to roughly match fluorescent)

This basically says thats CTO warms up, CTB cools down and Plus Green turns daylight to fluorescent. When using mixed lighting these gels can be used to balance tungsten lights to daylight ones or vica versa.

Frost, spun and other diffusers are used to soften the light in difference ways. But these do also take power out of the light so make sure to re meter after putting them on lights.
 
Thanks for the response.
So what would normal home lighting be? Would I need to warm up the flash light to match it?
Is there a way of telling what the ambient light warmth is? I guess it's fairly easy to get an approximate just by looking.
 
Home lighting is likely to be tungsten unless you have energy saving bulbs which occasionally balance to tungsten or daylight but more usually balance to fluorescent. When you get used to lighting you might find you can spot warm or cold but judging the actual temp is tough without a known benchmark. To find the temp in a fixed situation under unchanging light I'd try setting a preset or custom WB and seeing what looks best/ most accurate
 
OK, I'll have a play with the CTO's at home and see what happens.

Thanks for the help.
 
shoot ambient and tweak the wb setting in camera until it looks right, thats the ambient temp (I can do it by every hundred kelvin but I think you need to stick to presets)
 
OK, I'll have a play. Thanks David.

Nothing of interest Dean; I've mainly been taking photos of myself! Just playing about to get a better feel for the flash.
 
I use half CTO for normal domestic tungsten bulbs, with the camera set to tungsten white balance (if you don't do a custom white balance).

This may be a subjective thing, but I find it is better to under-adjust the flash rather than over-do it, if you can't get it spot on (and there are so many variables in bulbs/lampshades/walls/ceiling colours that it's often very hard). If you under-do it, the main foreground subject looks right but the background stays a little warm/yellow. If you go too far, the background will be bluish - which you can't correct in post processing - and I think looks worse than the other way around.
 
HoppyUK said:
I use half CTO for normal domestic tungsten bulbs, with the camera set to tungsten white balance (if you don't do a custom white balance).

This may be a subjective thing, but I find it is better to under-adjust the flash rather than over-do it, if you can't get it spot on (and there are so many variables in bulbs/lampshades/walls/ceiling colours that it's often very hard). If you under-do it, the main foreground subject looks right but the background stays a little warm/yellow. If you go too far, the background will be bluish - which you can't correct in post processing - and I think looks worse than the other way around.
Click to expand...

sometimes with tungsten I leave flash ungelled cos it looks nice, thats a subjective thing though
 
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