Gels and softboxes....

[DaPOPO]

I told a friend of mine I would help him out and take photos at his daughters wedding... The wedding and reception is indoors where the lighting is primarily incandescent and some LED for blue, red and green lighting...

Unless I am incorrect I should set my camera for tungsten lighting and use my CTO gels for the night...

When I received my gels from Magmod I used a cyan (Blue) gel for practice on a friend and shot through my softbox. The blue was washed out... still blue but washed out, I BELIEVE because it went through the white diffusion material... I took a picture without the softbox and he was blue...

At the wedding do I need to just increase the flashout ouput to compensate for the gel and the diffusion material, or do I need to just use the bare flash with the CTO gel for the pictures?

To my mind I would prefer to use the sofbox for the outcome I am expecting, but I have never been in this situation before so I am not sure...

My gut tells me to use more power, but this may not be true...

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks....

 

[smoke665]

I feel your pain, I volunteered to shoot an elderly friends wedding as a gift. The light int the church was horrible, compounded by pale yellow walls, yellow stained glass windows and 70's era some shade of orange/yellow carpet.

I used a cyan (Blue) gel for practice on a friend and shot through my softbox. The blue was washed out

Did you get the "Standard" set with the CTOs and CTBs or did you get the "Creative" set? There's a difference. When adding creative color with a gel, the hue is function of luminosity - More light weaker color, less light darker color. A CTO or CTB function is to balance color temperature of the flash and the ambient light. On the CTO/CTB, I've found this a helpful explanation How to Use CTO and CTB Gels to Change the Color of Your Background

As to light levels without an incident meter, you're pretty much guessing, trial and error. Also a word of warning if it's in a church, some of them get upset about a flash during the ceremony, and having a large softbox in the way is a no go. My friend's wedding was that way, I had to do a hurry up set after the service with flash, while the guests were in the reception hall. During the service it was ambient only (thank goodness for high ISO). In the reception hall two speedlights on stands pointed up at a white ceiling with the camera set to fluorescent worked really well. My advise is to make sure you go to the location prior to the service to scope out where and how you will shoot.

 

[DaPOPO]

No, these are not the creative set, but I have those as well... This is the standard gels. It is a reception hall where quincenares are the norm...

 

[smoke665]

No, these are not the creative set, but I have those as well... This is the standard gels. It is a reception hall where quincenares are the norm...

I think I misread the third paragraph of your OP the first time, thinking you were adding creative color (sorry brain wasn't fully engaged) , but if I understand it correctly now, you were trying to change the color temperature with a CTB filter, not add creative color. In answer to that question, yes you have to change the WB setting on your camera. When using gels I find it better to dial in a custom WB setting then to use the camera standard settings. Using a CTO gel to cool the background, you would use a camera WB setting somewhere around 2500-3500, which equates to the Tungsten setting.

 

[JBPhotog]

A CTB is not cyan, it is a mix with the predominant colour being blue to balance out to @3200 K depending on the gel make and model. Mag mod gels as with any other flash makers generally don't get the colour balance right, use Lee, Rosco or Gamcolor if you want better conversions. And there are differences in between these brands, do some tests and find out which one appeals to you.

The "white" of the soft box material should not influence the kelvin too much but they do alter it within 1-200K for the most part, depending again on brand and age of the soft box.

You are correct in your claims of setting the WB in the camera to Tungsten and then using a CTO in the soft box to achieve a somewhat neutral colour balance. However, depending on the actual wattage of the tungsten room lights, you will never get it bang on, my experience is many tungsten lamps are close to 2500k when lower wattage bulbs are used. You may also find that attempting to balance it out makes your images look too clinical and a warm ambient tone may be better, that of course is a personal preference.

As smoke665 stated, more power through a gel simply washes it out, there is a balance to get the tone you want.

I would highly recommend you shoot Raw as many programs offer manipulation in post to tweak the WB to your liking.

 

[DaPOPO]

A CTB is not cyan, it is a mix with the predominant colour being blue to balance out to @3200 K depending on the gel make and model. Mag mod gels as with any other flash makers generally don't get the colour balance right, use Lee, Rosco or Gamcolor if you want better conversions. And there are differences in between these brands, do some tests and find out which one appeals to you.

The "white" of the soft box material should not influence the kelvin too much but they do alter it within 1-200K for the most part, depending again on brand and age of the soft box.

You are correct in your claims of setting the WB in the camera to Tungsten and then using a CTO in the soft box to achieve a somewhat neutral colour balance. However, depending on the actual wattage of the tungsten room lights, you will never get it bang on, my experience is many tungsten lamps are close to 2500k when lower wattage bulbs are used. You may also find that attempting to balance it out makes your images look too clinical and a warm ambient tone may be better, that of course is a personal preference.

As smoke665 stated, more power through a gel simply washes it out, there is a balance to get the tone you want.

I would highly recommend you shoot Raw as many programs offer manipulation in post to tweak the WB to your liking.

Thanks for the input!!!