Flash Photography Tutorial : Using Gels on Strobes with Fluorescent Lighting

My entire kit of gear : kit.co/robhall... Follow me on Instagram: bit.ly/2sj7Lsq
Gear Used in this video:
R2 Pro Mark II : bit.ly/R2ProIIS
AD200 / Evolv 200 : adorama.rfvk.n...
Rogue Flash Gels for Speedlites: adorama.rfvk.n...
Flash Photography Tutorial
This series of videos is designed to help off-camera flash beginners quickly advance to lighting with purpose. First, this series assumes you have an understanding of the exposure triangle, and are capable of controlling your camera in Manual mode. While it's possible to use flash with semi-automatic modes, I think it's a requirement to understand lighting in manual mode if you want to take control of all aspects of your images. This series is broken down into short, easy-to-digest lessons that progress you from balancing a single light, to using multiple lights outdoors to drive home the story in your image.
In this video, we talk about balancing flash with the most annoying light source out there, fluorescent tube lighting. Fluorescent lights are complicated because in addition to having different Kelvin temperature, they also tend to have a tint cast, which means they have a green hue to them. They also pulsate light of alternating colors, which can lead to banding colors in your images if your shutter speed doesn't align with how they pulsate. I share how the answer to the tint issue is to use a plus green gel in addition to the proper color correction gel. If you came across this before the color correction gels video, I highly recommend checking that out as well.
SERIES PLAYLIST LINK -
• Ultimately Guide to Fl...
SERIES VIDEO LIST
Balancing Flash Exposure : • Off Camera Flash Photo...
Balancing Flash Exposure Outdoors: • Off Camera Flash Photo...
Light Modifier Selection: • Off Camera Flash Photo...
Quality of Light: • Off Camera Flash Photo...
Direction of Light: • Off Camera Flash Photo...
Using Quality and Direction to Control Light Patterns: • Off Camera Flash Photo...
Using Color Correction Gels: • Flash Photography Tuto...
Light Meter Basics : • Light Meter Tutorial P...
Balancing Multiple Lights: • Flash Photography Tuto...
Matching Fluorescent Lights with color correction gels: Here
Inverse Color effects with color correction gels: • Flash Photography Tuto...
Bringing it All Together Outside: • Outdoor Flash Photogra...

[@mightymuffinful]

Thanks for sharing these informative tips

[@wendystumbaugh695]

Robert Hall is the only KZbinr to touch this subject with a 29-1/2’ pole!!!

[@jongrall]

Helpful video, Robert. It seems that in addition to shooting in another location, or gelling your light to balance the fluorescent, there is a third option - overpower the fluorescent light so that the only visible light in your shot is from your flashes that don't suffer from tint issues (or at least have a tint matching each other).

[@joes2828]

Wow, this is super helpful, thanks. Also a good way to practice at home is to buy cheap cto and ctb light bulbs to emulate the different lighting conditions. This makes for excellent practice.

[@peterlemke3468]

Will have to try that a great inexpensive idea.

[@alvarob17]

Thanks for these series of videos Robert. Quick question as I did not get this part around minute 2:00. You determined the Kelvin temperature was around 3200 and tint was -30 magenta. How did you determine that, in lightroom, camera? I'll look to see if you have a video on white balance. Thanks again!

[@robhallphoto]

I used the cameras built in feature to find the white balance based on photographing a neutral surface. 7:50 in this video link demos it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rprYdnaAaJKWqMU In general this video should solidify ambient white balance and how your camera and flash interacts with it. So, after running that my camera said 3200K M3.0 was the ambient color. Which equates to 3200 +30 in Lightroom. By recognizing that my camera is compensating with magenta, that means the environment has green light. So that means in order for flash to balance with it, green needs to be added.

[@adrianabocanegraphotograph8912]

Great video!!!! It helps a lot. Thank you so much 😊

[@bychrisjones]

The only complaint I've had as a photographer was when I did some headshots in an office and because of the fluorescent lighting I couldn't get the colors right, I didn't know about using the double gel, I just used the cto good to know.

[@betadance222]

Great video. So, if I were to not set a custom white balance, what would I set my WB to once I had gelled my flash? Fluorescent since all the light sources are now greenish? (Understanding that this might not be perfect). Do you need the CTO always along with the green gel?

[@JeffDietzphoto]

Question here Robert: I am on a role here with tons of questions about gel at the moment so thanks. I'm watching the part at 3:10 where it says 3200 Kelvin +30 Magenta Tint. I must have missed it somewhere, so are you changing your manual White balance to 3200? Or does that stay at 5300 but you are saying the flash is now 3200. As well as the +30 M. That is done in camera? How are you testing that on the fly at a shoot in a given enviroment to know it's 30? Orrrrrrr is that referring to adjustments you made later in LR/Capture One?

[@robhallphoto]

In this instance I identified both the white balance and the tint by using the custom white balance function and photographing the white wall. This tells me right on my camera, what the white balance (3200k) and the tint (+30 magenta) are. Then I can assign that custom white balance, or punch those numbers manually in the camera, but yes I use those settings on the camera and match my gels based on the numbers I see.

[@JeffDietzphoto]

@@robhallphoto hmmm. that must be a sony thing? when I do a custom white balance on fuji it just sets the balance it doesnt give me a read out

[@ibob93]

Hi Rob, could you tell me a little more about the screen protection you put on the rear of you AD200 pls?

[@robhallphoto]

They were 3d printed and sold online by a local engineer but are no longer available

[@damianbereza6901]

Hi, Robert Can you tell more about Godox V-11T gels. Are they worth to buy? Thanks 4 your reply

[@robhallphoto]

Covered in my "gels for ad200" video.

[@lenavoyles526]

What about correcting the other direction? I'm having a really hard time finding magenta color correction gels. Everything I'm seeing is dark special effect gels.

[@robhallphoto]

The mistake is searching for "magenta". Plus Green / Minus green is the proper terms for gels.

[@dunnymonster]

Fluorescent lighting is an absolute nightmare, I did a shoot where I was following a visit by the mayor of a local business ( a multi office call centre ). Every room had different colour temperatures and worse still there was some natural window light too. I wasn't using flash because I wasn't allowed to but decided to take a shot of my colour checker passport in each room to create a colour profile later in lightroom. I was able to use flash in some shots in another part of the building, adding a green gel helped those shots thank goodness.

[@marke3470]

Have I missed the white balance video? I didn't see how to color balance multiple flashes.

[@johnvillalovos]

I thought white balance was both color temperature and tint. The video makes it sound like white balance is color temperature and that tint is separate.