Soooo this may sound like a stupid question..

[mrshaleyberg]

Well I think Rosco gels are heat resistant, but the continuous lights I have don't get hot at all, so I'm going to give it a try.

 

[mrshaleyberg]

I don't know. I've always been curious to see how they work. And just trying to find a cheaper alternative to buying so much seamless paper, because it adds up pretty quickly. Yesterday I bought two 4 foot rolls..Even though 60 dollars isn't too bad, I'm just curious to see if the gels would work.

 

[Christie Photo]

So can you put a gel over a continues lighting kit?

There are some variables to consider. If you put a gel over a quartz light, you can pretty much guess what's gonna happen. That's just too much heat.

As for using gels for background colors, remember... photography is making a record of reflect (sometimes transmitted) light. To achieve nice rich colors, direct the background light with the gel onto a deep or black background. White won't work. A white background will already reflect all colors or the spectrum, so adding a colored light will not produce much color. Black appears black because it is reflecting little or no light. So when you hit some black seamless paper with a colored light, only that color will reflect back. Am I making sense?

If you go to my site and click on PRODUCTS, the 11th image is an example of how this works.

I hope this helps.

-Pete

 

[mrshaleyberg]

Yeah, that makes sense. I have a grey background, and a black background, so I'll try those. I know grey will work too, but black would probably be better. Trial and error. I'll just experiment and see what works best. I'm mainly just playing around to see what I can do for right now.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Derrel]

Gels help you change the background colors quite well on dark paper and fabric backgrounds. Gels work splendidly on black and dark gray backgrounds! On lighter backgrounds, gels take on pastel hues, and many times, with higher power levels, reflect the gelled light back toward the subjects, which often looks bad, or gimmicky. But on black backgrounds, gels can provide rich,saturated colored backgrounds quite easily.

 

[mrshaleyberg]

Gels help you change the background colors quite well on dark paper and fabric backgrounds. Gels work splendidly on black and dark gray backgrounds! On lighter backgrounds, gels take on pastel hues, and many times, with higher power levels, reflect the gelled light back toward the subjects, which often looks bad, or gimmicky. But on black backgrounds, gels can provide rich,saturated colored backgrounds quite easily.

Thanks for this! I'm going to do some testing!

 

[Geaux]

When I get home, I'll post some pictures of a DIY Gel Holder I did a while back (after my ghetto cereal box version lol). Perfect for an sb600 size strobe and Rosco Gels.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

If was shooting your set up, which i actually could if i wanted to at a wedding, the only gel i'd use is a tungsten gel on the 600. Just in case the reception is inside, that way the flash matches the ambient color temperature. Otherwise just shoot ambient and leave the speedlight in the bag. BTW, the bokeh on the 50G looks smoothest at f/2.8, so i'd try to keep it around there.