Gelling a Softbox

jamesoliverstone

jamesoliverstone

Messages
2,145
Name
James
Edit My Images
No
I wonder if someone can come up with a creative way that I can gel a bare bulb flash (Alien Bee B1600) inside a westcott apollo 50" & 28" softboxes?

What I would love to see is a gel opaque cover dome that you can attach to the alien bees mounting clips so you are effectively gelling the bare bulb, but I suspect it would melt from the 1600w ;)

Anyone have any good ideas? I am shooting in Africa and I would really like to balance my flash colour against the sun, but as my big softbox is 50" in size, its a tricky one...

Anyone got any clever ideas?
 
You can gel the front screen of the softbox, but with large softbox on location that will be pain.

p.s. Alien Bee B1600 is not 1600Ws, its actually 640Ws...
 
Is it the flash tube you want to cover assuming the flash doesn't have a modelling light, heat shouldn't be to much of an issue, though I'd still personally have some air flow. Lee filters produce a HT version of some of their gels, which are better with heat, but not sure off hand if its available in 1/4 or 1/2 cto. Would it be possible to make a tube shape that slots over the ceramic part of the flash element then attach a disc shape piece to the front. The rear could be strengthened with a band of heat proof tape to form a kind of band to fit.
Dean.
 
Yeah the flash has a modelling light, but I can remove that as I wont be using it out in the field anyway... I can see what you are getting at, and I will look to see if Lee has big sheets in stock...

The more I think about it, the only way I can see to do it, is to get a large sheet and attach it inside the softbox (like a diffusion panel) so that the light has to pass through it... attaching it could be a pain, but thats where velcro comes into play I guess...
 
Lee do very large size sheets we get ours in rolls of 1200mm width.
Dean.
 
What about getting a spare diffuser front and dyeing it. I'm sure there is a dye that's pretty close to the colour you want.
Dean.
 
Lee make high temperature flash gels (I think they are intended for hot lights).

A small piece of that in front of the flash tube should do it. Flash tube shouldn't get hotter than a blonde.

ETA: Oh yeah that's basically what Dino said.....

If you have an inner baffle then stick it to that.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top