Softbox Colour

Barney

Barney

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Wayne
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HI,

Having just bought a S/H Bowens wafer softbox I have concerns that the very slight yellowing it displays could introduce problems into a multi light flash set up.

Is there an accepted process for returning the diffuser material back to its original bright white?
 
Sort of . . .
The hard way of doing it is to stick a blue gel over PART of the inner diffuser, something like this https://stagedepot.co.uk/lighting/lighting-gel/high-temperature/62-booster-blue-lighting-gel may be a good starting point, but it can take a bit of fiddling to get it right.

But my usual bodge was to (very lightly spray blue car paint onto the inner diffuser, personally I feel that it does a better job, because I would start with just a hint of blue and then build it up as necessary, testing constantly, until it's right.

You could of course also try bleaching the material, it works on some diffusers but not on others.

You may also be able to buy a replacement outer diffuser, but even if they are available they will be far from cheap.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Sort of . . .
The hard way of doing it is to stick a blue gel over PART of the inner diffuser, something like this https://stagedepot.co.uk/lighting/lighting-gel/high-temperature/62-booster-blue-lighting-gel may be a good starting point, but it can take a bit of fiddling to get it right.

But my usual bodge was to (very lightly spray blue car paint onto the inner diffuser, personally I feel that it does a better job, because I would start with just a hint of blue and then build it up as necessary, testing constantly, until it's right.

You could of course also try bleaching the material, it works on some diffusers but not on others.

You may also be able to buy a replacement outer diffuser, but even if they are available they will be far from cheap.
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Thanks for that advice,

Spraying it would scare me to death, I might try the bleach suggestion first as its something I can try immediately with no shopping.
 
I think I'd be doing a custom white ballance or trying Ciff cleaner. Dont fancy spraying. Might be easier to just replace the diffuser material.
 
Id they are all like that zero problems. If not then obviously not so great. Test them out and see what it is actually like.

Don't forget that flashes may also shift in colour a little when going from mine to max power
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Id they are all like that zero problems. If not then obviously not so great. Test them out and see what it is actually like.

Don't forget that flashes may also shift in colour a little when going from mine to max power
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Hi,

They are not all the same, I am going to do a tester as you say to see if there is actually an effect. After sleeping on it my thoughts are that carefully placed different colored lights are used frequently in the same shot so why not a slightly off white key light? I am going to try it on different colored materials; golds, browns and beige to see if it produces something aesthetically pleasing and/or unique. Certain skin tones could also stand it I am starting to think.
 
Some interesting and valid points:)

Flash colour output does vary. With the "budget" brands that only used one (or sometimes two) capacitors, it varied a lot. Historically, flash heads could only be set to a choice of full, half or a quarter power, this normally meant that the flash head had 4 capacitors, all used at full power, two used at half power and one at quarter power, and that was fine. but marketing created a "need" for a wide and infinite range of power settings, and this basically involved including a potentiometer into the system, which caused massive colour shifts, and especially at low power settings, and the cheaper the lights, the worse the problem . . . I remember testing one very popular American brand that shifted 1200K between max and min power, but these were marketed to people who didn't even see the problem:(

Move forward, and now we use IGBT flashes (mostly) and the problem no longer exists in real terms, because IGBT flashes always fire at full power regardless of the setting, at lower settings the flash is on for less time.

As for yellowing of the softbox fabric, we've had this problem ever since Chimera invented fabric softboxes (before that they were metal boxes with ground glass screens). Chimera were excellent but very expensive (and the Bowens Wafer weren't that far behind them) and we always had to correct this yellowing, and a hint of blue spray paint was the normal professional cure.

But, I'm talking about high-end professional work. I specialised in product photography, and colours needed to be spot-on, especially with fashion, for obvious reasons, and especially because, back then, everything ended up in print, so it had to be right.

Fast-forward to today, very little gets printed and nearly everything is viewed on computer, and the average viewer doesn't have a calibrated monitor, so colours are all over the place, nobody notices and nobody cares. Two of my monitors are calibrated correctly, the third one is a cheapie that I use just to keep my tools or documents, the colours are hopelessly wrong, and sitting here and moving a photo from one of the calibrated monitors to the 3rd monitor shows just how far off it is.

monitor difference.jpg
So, that's my long answer. My short answer is that whether the colour shift matters or not depends on a lot of different factors, and what matters to one person may not matter to another.
 
juggler said:
fwiw.. i.e. not a lot, but it is relevant.. one of my extra large budget softboxes is a different colour at each end. Been like that since brand new.
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are the lighting colours' produced identifiable as differing in the final output?
 
Barney said:
are the lighting colours' produced identifiable as differing in the final output?
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juggler said:
Yes, if you go looking for it.
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In my own experience, discoloured modifiers, varying and mis-matched light sources and just about all other colour faults (including but not limited to unwanted colour reflections from odd things lying around (think of a brightly-coloured carpet or similar) ALWAYS show in the finished result, it's inevitable.

But, as Juggler says, you'll see it if you go looking for it. So, the question is "Does it really matter?" and my answer is "It depends".

Go back to what I used to do for a living, commercial photography. I had a 4000 sq ft studio, high ceiling, everything painted black to avoid unwanted colour contamination, I used a colour temperature meter to check correct colour output, and would gel or spray-paint as necessary to get it right - but then most of what I shot was fashion, where showing true colours is paramount, and then the other stuff I shot was other types of products, but usually high-end ones, especially food, where the client was always happy to spend a bit more to get it right.

I didn't really bother with the cheap end, partly because clients weren't prepared to pay my prices when all that they needed was clear photos that show what vape fluid or a left-handed widget actually looks like, and partly because it's never worth the cost of perfection for cheap items with very low profit margins.

We used to have a member on here who ran a "packshot" studio - vast numbers of products photographed at very low cost, he had completely untrained staff to do what he described as photography, all shot with continuous lighting. His work was frankly terrible but he pointed out that it was good enough for his customers, and he had a point - there's good reason to spend more when the photography needs to be really good, but there's no point in wasting money:)
 
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