"There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept." - Ansel Adams
"'Available light' means any light that's available." - Arnold Newman
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| © Gregory Crewdson |
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| © Gregory Crewdson |
Light Balancing Filters (LB: usually used for warming/cooling or tungsten/daylight shifts) or Color Correction Filters (CC: usually used for magenta-green shifts) can be used on lens to correct for subtle color temperature shifts in your light source, or to correct for more drastic imbalances of film/camera color temperatures to the light source. For example, if you are shooting outside under daylight color temperatures with tungsten balanced film, you could use an 85B filter on lens to warm the daylight to more closely match the tungsten film's color temperature. CC filters are typically used when it is critical to balance the color temperature of a light source to the film. For example, still life photographers would use a color meter to help figure out what CC filters would balance the light for accurate color results in the products they were shooting.
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| (LB) Light Balancing Filters |
Color correction gels, such as CTB and CTO, "Color Temperature Blue", and "Color Temperature Orange" are larger sheets of gels that are put over light sources to alter or "correct" the color temperature of a light to more closely match the color temperature of a film negative, or chrome, or the white balance of a digital camera.
These gels can also be used in a creative way! Use over your speedlight flash to add color and mood to the background as in the example below:
To be shot in teams of 2 in class:
Shot Outside:
- Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚, + 85B LB filter over lens (as if you were using Tungsten film outside with a correcting LB filter for daylight use)
Shot Outside:
- Daylight shot with WB @ 5000˚K (or Daylight Preset)
- Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K (or Tungsten Preset)
- Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K, shot down -2 stops
- Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K, speedlight reading +2 from camera setting (still at -2 so FG is proper exposure, but BG is -2)
- Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K, speedlight +2 (or more) with Full CTO on strobe
Shot Inside:
- Fluorescent shot with WB @ 5000˚K
- Fluorescent shot with WB @ Fluorescent preset
- Fluorescent shot with WB @ Fluorescent preset and Speedlight +1
- Fluorescent shot with WB @ Fluorescent preset and Speedlight +1 with Full +1 Green CC Gel (Rosco #3304)
Color Correction Filter/Gel List for use over Lights:
Lee Filters:
- 201 Full CTB (Color Temperature Blue)
- 202 Half CTB
- 203 Quarter CTB
- 218 Eighth CTB
- 204 Full CTO (Color Temperature Orange)
- 205 Half CTO
- 206 Quarter CTO
- 223 Eighth CTO
- 241 Fluorescent 5700K
- 242 Fluorescent 4300K
Rosco Filters:
- 3202 Full CTB (Color Temperature Blue); 3200K to 5500K
- 3204 Half CTB; 3200K to 4100K
- 3208 Quarter CTB; 3200K to 3500K
- 3216 Eighth CTB; 3200K to 3300K
- 3407 Full CTO (Color Temperature Orange); 5500K to 2900K
- 3411 3/4 CTO; 5500K to 3200K
- 3408 Half CTO; 5500K to 3800K
- 3409 Quarter CTO; 5500K to 4500K
- 3410 Eighth CTO; 5500K to 4900K
- 3304 Full Plus Green; to balance daylight sources to cool white fluorescent
- 3315 1/2 Plus Green; partial green to balance with fluorescents
*Can be purchased at Set Shop
Color Correction Filter Pack for Speedlights at HoneyGrids.com
Minolta IIIF Color Meter Manual
