Learning Flash...could my problem be lack of gels?

wildviper

Hi All,

As my 2009 resolution, I have decided that I am going to learn flash photography and how to use it to create artistic pictures no matter where I am shooting..outdoors, indoors..daylight, tungsten and so on.

I hate that flash look and this is my goal to learn to avoid that.

In my first test, here are two pictures, one with flash and one without: Am I getting that white flash look cause of no warming gels under tungsten lighting?

The setup was exactly the same as far as the exposure: f4 with 1/8sec shutter. Flash was on manual wireless..powered down to 1/64 power and was not bounced. direct flash with Stofen Omnibounce.

No post processing except for making it smaller.

wildviper

the other pix:

pathfinder

Direct flash is much bluer than tungsten lighting as you are aware.

Are you sure the ambient light in your pictures is tungsten? It looks kind of green to me. It is getting hard to replace tungsten bulbs these days, as everywhere is pushing fluorescent tungsten replacement bulbs. They call them warm, pink or something, but they frequently are still somewhat green.

Try your shot with a 1/4 or 1/2 CTO gel over your flash.

You can order them from here

That's where I got mine too!

wildviper

pathfinder wrote:

Are you sure the ambient light in your pictures is tungsten? It looks kind of green to me. It is getting hard to replace tungsten bulbs these days, as everywhere is pushing fluorescent tungsten replacement bulbs. They call them warm, pink or something, but they frequently are still somewhat green.

Actually come to think about it...it is one of those energy saving wierd looking lamps. What is that? Fluorescent?

pathfinder

Yup!!

MarkW

wildviper wrote:

Hi All,

As my 2009 resolution, I have decided that I am going to learn flash photography and how to use it to create artistic pictures no matter where I am shooting..outdoors, indoors..daylight, tungsten and so on.

I hate that flash look and this is my goal to learn to avoid that.

In my first test, here are two pictures, one with flash and one without: Am I getting that white flash look cause of no warming gels under tungsten lighting?

The setup was exactly the same as far as the exposure: f4 with 1/8sec shutter. Flash was on manual wireless..powered down to 1/64 power and was not bounced. direct flash with Stofen Omnibounce.

No post processing except for making it smaller.

As stated the green color cast is coming from the flourescent lights. The flash appears blue because of this. Your flash isn't really contributing much to the expousure since it's at such a low power.

I have a couple of questions:

What kind of flash/camera where you using?

What was your ISO?

What mode were you shooting in? P, A, S, M?

I'm assuming the flash was off camera according to the direction of light.

The flash really wasn't contributing much to the exposure since it most of the ambient light was being picked up. There's kind of two ways to use flash and by that I mean you're either going to balance it with the ambient light (which is the example here) or you're going to use it to overpower the ambient light. Typically when I shoot inside studio stuff with my Vivitar 285HV, I overpower the ambient light so it doesn't contribute to my exposure. Usually I'm shooting 1/250 @ f/5.6, ISO 100. Typically the flash is on 1/4 power @ 5ft-6ft from the subject with a shoot through umbrella. Most indoor room lighting will meter at 1/10 to 1/20 @ f/2.8, ISO 100. By shooting at 1/250 @ f/5.6, there's over four stops of light difference in the light. So if I would take the shot without the flash at those settings the image would come out black.

I kind of have an idea to the answers to the questions above.

I imagine you're using a Nikon camera with an sb600 and commander mode. ISO was probably around 100, and possibly in A mode.

Assuming the above I would try the following for starters:

Set the flash to manual 1/4 power, ISO 100, f/4 and shutter @ 1/250. Position the flash about 5 to 7ft away from the subject at a 45 degree angle. If you are using an sb-600 it should have about the same power as a Vivitar 285HV. You may have to bump the power up or down slightly depending on how the exposure comes out.

wildviper

MarkW wrote:

I have a couple of questions:

What kind of flash/camera where you using?

What was your ISO?

What mode were you shooting in? P, A, S, M?

I'm assuming the flash was off camera according to the direction of light.

The camera was Nikon D70s with an SB 600 off-camera.

I was shooting on manual with spot metering. But I just randomly selected the 1/8 to bring out the ambience a little. ISO was 200. I can't go to ISO 100 on the D70s. I am surprised that a lot of Nikons don't have ISO 100. That's odd to me...but for another day.

My intent was to balance with the ambient. I wasn't too concerned about the exposure coming dark...I just was trying to see if I could balance the flash.

I will the steps mentioned here and see how that goes.

Terrence

Gels are key to correcting for the color cast of the blue-sh flash light. Take a look at Lighting 101 on Strobist for one of (if not the) best course (free or otherwise) on off camera, small strobe lighting. You'll learn all about gels, gear, settings, and more there.