Gel's for flashes - which ones should i get?

dubcat

dubcat

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Amir
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Hi -

i am looking at flea bay and there are a ton of people selling lee gel's to put on your flash to match it to the ambient lighting. However, some of the packs have just a few gels and others have a vast array of colours. I know I need CTO to match tungesten but these kits include 1/2 cto, 1/4 cto, ctb, window green, and different strengths of each plus more.

I'm confused. What do i need? I thought I just needed a CTO for tungsten and a Window Green for flourescent. Can you advise me as to what i need and also how do i work out what strength i need?

Thanks,
Dub
 
A range of CTO strengths is important. Of course this is useful for matching tungsten, but also if you want to throw light that is the colour of warm sunlight (simulating sunset), so having 1/4, 1/2 and FULL in combination you can get just the effect you are after.

Similarly if you're splitting your white balance. If you've got a grey boring sky, you can set white balance to tungsten to make everything an interesting cobalt blue, then gel your flash with FULL CTO and everything in range of the flash will become natural colours (against the blue sky). But if you want your subject to look warm (as if morning or evenign sun) then you need to double gel and add 1/4 or 1/2 or both.

Full and half green is useful too. Sometimes I find full green too much and over compensates for the fluorescents.

If you also get some Red, Yellow and Blue gels these are pretty cool for background colouring and special colour effects.

Good luck

Steve
 
you need
1/4 1/2 and 1 in cto (to make light warm) ctb (to make light cool) and window green (to match to flourescent) for gelling purposes

primary colours are handy for effects

hit up strobist as he has a useful section on gels
 
For the cost of them you might as well get the lot and then you can start doing more creative stuff rather than just balancing your flash output with the ambient. I've used Flash Gels before and was more than happy with the service and product.
 
For your info "Practical Photography" magazine this month comes with 3 free lee gels...


:thumbs:
 
Go onto Lee's website and fill out a contact page asking for a sample pack of Lee Gels,
They send out a massive pack of around 100-200 gels which includes 1/4CTO, 1/2CTO and FullCTO. Plus 1/4, 1/2 and Full CTB too

And it's free :D
 
J4MIE_P said:
Go onto Lee's website and fill out a contact page asking for a sample pack of Lee Gels,
They send out a massive pack of around 100-200 gels which includes 1/4CTO, 1/2CTO and FullCTO. Plus 1/4, 1/2 and Full CTB too

And it's free :D
Click to expand...

buuuut they're really quite a bit too small really.

flashgels.co.uk is where it's at ;)
 
i used to have a set of free lee gels... however they are such a pain to use, always slightly small... ended up buying some honl could correction gels, (comes with all youl need, cto, ctb, flourecent etc.etc.) and a honl speed strap... they may be an extra expense, but there so quick and easy to use it makes up for it... not having to fiddle round so much in a shoot...
 
I am at work and so don't have access to my flash. Anyone have any idea whether i need the 5cm or 4cm gels for the Canon 580ex ii please? If i can find out i'll order from flash gels now :)
Cheers,
Dub
 
Ive been looking at getting some gels...

Now.. a basic question for you... I know for tungsten light you need CTO gels and for fluorescent light you need green gels but my question is... when do I use which?!

Say for example im in a room lit by the normal energy efficient light bulbs.. which light is that?

Thanks.
 
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