I know you said that the WB doesn’t have to be dead on when gelling the flash but that it should be close. I have a question though. I can’t seem to get nice skin tones. Should I gel my flash for overcast days, early sunset, etc? I want to get nice skin tones and they almost never come out like yours, I always seem to get hot spots and weird tones that make it worse. My thought is that the skin tones look off because if I’m shooting during an overcast day (6500k temp), I need to make my flash cooler to match, same for early sunset. I gelled my flash for early sunset but I think the flash was too orange and it caused problems.

I hope my question makes sense.

Jeff .. the fluorescents are a problem. So when I have to deal with fluorescents, I usually just overpower it with flash for the light on my subject. This way I don’t have to deal with color balance issues.

Neil vN

I’ve been experimenting with CTS and 1/2 CTS gels, and I’ve been having a hard time setting the right white balance in camera. Of the default settings, the fluorescent setting actually gives the best results out of camera (I shoot with a D90). But even those results look a little funny. Like kind of cool/blue, but with a warmer, purple-ish tone. CFL’s seem to give me the hardest time, but the other bulbs in my home are regular “daylight” bulbs. Am I missing something? Thanks again for your time!

Jeff

Max .. I found it easier to get a nice skin tone from the CTS and 1//2 CTS since the gel is less red than the CTO gels. But that is more of an anecdotal difference than it would be a measurable quantity.

Neil vN

Jason, generally, if I want my flash to appear more or less neutral to the background light (Tungsten), then I use the full CTS. If I want the background to retain some of the warmth, then I only partially correct my flash by using a 1/2 CTS filter.

I mostly use the 1/2 CTS though. Especially because bouncing the 1/2 CTS gelled flash off a warm tinted wall will make the flash even warmer and bring it a bit closer even to the tungsten lighting.

Neil vN

Do you have a ‘rough and ready’ way to estimate whether you are going to use a 1/4, 1/2 or full CTO gel. I have been guilty a few times in past of over-gelling which meant some work in LR later to get the skin tones back. I suppose it’s arguable what is worse, slightly orange skin or that terrible deathly blue tone that you get from too much flash in a tungsten environment.

-Kudos

Mike