Gels advice

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Scott
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Guys I have been using the lastolite hilite for high key shots and last night had a thought that I could use gels to change the colour. I tried it this morning with gels that came with my speedlights and it worked well although I'd like stronger colours.

Can someone recommend me a decent set of speedlight gels that have a good strong colour to them. I read somewhere they come in 0.25, 0.5 & 1.0 strengths but I can't see this in descriptions when I'm looking at ones that are for sale.
 
I'm assuming that you're wanting to place the gels over your speedlights, and that you're using the speedlights to gel the hilite, not the subject?

It couldn't be easier. If you want the gels to produce a strong, saturated colour then all that you have to do is to turn the power down. The lower the power, the more saturated the colour will be, and the higher the power, the more pastel it will be, and will get to the point, with far too much power, where the gel will have almost zero effect.

And on a related subject, all that you need is the 3 primary colours, red blue and green. Combine any two of these to produce other colours. Gel manufacturers try to sell a bewildering range of colours, this primarily dates back to pre digital days when they had a real purpose (and a few colour correction gels still have a place in high end product photography today) but, for your purpose, they are irrelevant.
 
It's like photographing a sunset... the more light/exposure the lighter and more pastel the colors are. And the less the exposure, the darker and more saturated the colors are.

Understand that gels do not color the light, they absorb a portion of the light that is not the same color... the less light they have to absorb, the more effective they are.
 
Thanks guys. I will try again tomorrow as I actually turned the power up thinking that would be beneficial.

Ps I am trying to light the hilite and not the model.
 
Thanks guys. I will try again tomorrow as I actually turned the power up thinking that would be beneficial.

Ps I am trying to light the hilite and not the model.
OK.
Just to give a bit more information for your tests, if you combine:
Red + Green you'll get yellow
Red + Blue you'll get purple
Green + Blue is a sort of sky blue
Red + Blue + Green produces nothing at all, as obviously all of the light is filtered out.

You mentioned that you didn't know which strength of colours to get. Well, if you're using a single colour at a time then you can get a stronger (more saturated) colour either by doubling up the thickness or by reducing the power, same effect so pointless, but if you want to create more colours then you can double up either one of them to produce more varieties
 
Just remember that you need to keep your key light under control - it can easily wash out the effect of any gels on the backdrop, especially in lighter areas.

It's definitely worth setting your WB to something other than auto even if shooting raw. The camera will probably attempt to correct for any colour cast you're deliberately introducing.

I've only tried lighting a hilite with gels once - actually, it was just a diffuser from a 5-in-1 lit from behind - and found that using pastel coloured gels on low power it still needed a fair bit of processing to get the colours really saturated.

This is a test shot from a couple of weeks ago, done with the diffuser panel from a large reflector. I don't have the SOOC pic to hand; suffice it to say that the colours were a lot less saturated even though the lights were all well controlled.

Personally.. I'm not convinced it was worth the effort other than as a learning experience.

_SRC6937-Edit-Edit-Edit (Small).jpg
 
Good point, a hilite isn't ideal for this and the obvious choice where gelling is required is a grey paper background.
It is however still do-able.
 
Just remember that you need to keep your key light under control - it can easily wash out the effect of any gels on the backdrop, especially in lighter areas.

It's definitely worth setting your WB to something other than auto even if shooting raw. The camera will probably attempt to correct for any colour cast you're deliberately introducing.

I've only tried lighting a hilite with gels once - actually, it was just a diffuser from a 5-in-1 lit from behind - and found that using pastel coloured gels on low power it still needed a fair bit of processing to get the colours really saturated.

This is a test shot from a couple of weeks ago, done with the diffuser panel from a large reflector. I don't have the SOOC pic to hand; suffice it to say that the colours were a lot less saturated even though the lights were all well controlled.

Personally.. I'm not convinced it was worth the effort other than as a learning experience.

View attachment 137764
Very nice mate. Lovely colours.
 
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