Hankwt Loc: kingsville ontario

In my ongoing quest to become a better photographer while takling flash Ive come up with a few questions .

1. How does one properly address White Balance settings with flash ? Do uou base it on the ambient light like flouresent/ tungsten etc ?

2 If using something like an Expo disc or a similar type WB aid how is it done ? Do you take the pic in the preset mode with the flash on ?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

PS. Im using Nikon flashes but that shouldnt make a difference - I think !!

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

I simply set white balance for flash

robert-photos Loc: Chicago

I gel my flash to match the ambient lighting color temperature and set my white balance for that color temperature.

See:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-using-gels-to-correct.html

Musket Loc: ArtBallin'

I shoot raw, set WB to Auto, fix in Lightroom if there happens to be an issue.

I can trust my Nikon DSLR and Fuji Mirrorless SLR to get White Balance correctly when set to auto about 99% of the time.

You can set WB to Flash, or leave it in auto. Test around the house with flash/auto wb setting and see for yourself.

robert-photos Loc: Chicago

I disagree with using "Auto" WB. In "Auto" your camera will change the WB for each photo trying for that 17-18% grey average. If you PP a number of photos at one time it makes batch processing a pain. Best is to set your WB on anything but "Auto".

Shooting and un-gelled flash in ambient light other than 6000 deg. K will result in backgrounds difficult to color correct in post.

If you like the look of ghost white subjects against a yellow orange background when shooting indoors under incandescent lighting then don't color correct (gel) your flash and have at it. :roll:

I shot this event a few years back with an on camera flash (Canon 580EX) with a full CTS gel. Note that the backgrounds and incandescent wall sconces remain natural in color.
http://robert-photos.smugmug.com/Events/2011-04-20-NW-Suburb-GOP-Lincn/

This example of a bare flash that recently popped up on UHH:
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-162294-1.html
I believe it was already color corrected in post.

Bobbee

I was looking p 'full CTS ge;' and my search only came up with CTO and I found this article. Interesting read along the same lne.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-using-gels-to-correct.html

nekon Loc: Carterton, New Zealand

5500 Kelvin

schuchmn

It depends.

If the ambient light is dim and the flash is going to be the main light, flash WB should work.

If you're balancing flash with natural light (say, window light) auto should work.

But once you're trying to balance flash with incandescent lighting it gets trickier. Check out the strobist links posted above.

anotherview Loc: California

Whatever you do, consider avoiding red, orange, or yellow skin tones. Film photographers (and digital photographers copying them) settled for unnatural skin tones due to the difficulty of achieving natural skin tones. This offensive effect still exists despite the capacity of digital photo-editing to bring skin tones very close to a natural appearance.

You could turn to the Strobist Web site as suggested, but you will find there that David Hobby, though very knowledgeable and skilled, still produces unnatural skin tones in his subjects.

Let me please suggest instead the teachings of this photographer:

Neil Van Niekerk

http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/

His subjects have skin tones closer to a natural look.

Bobbee

Nice work, nice article. Read the first page and first link. will save the rest for hotel night reading tonight after work.

I shoot events and I get some good shots but like others search for the holy grail. One thing I do struggle with is my triggers. I have a good idea how to set them up and use them. But they are always failing. Like this weekend, I have my SB900 set up on a beauty dish, it was firing perfectly and then BOOM, the flash hooked up to my Mini Pocket Wizard attached to the dish stopped firing. Resetting it did not work and when I hit the test button on the flash the flash went 'zizzzzs' like it was shorting out. Wasn't overheated either. Switch to on camera with a Gary diffuser. Flashes frustrate me. Seem the more complicated the set up, the more that goes wrong. and basically, it 'is' really simple. Oh well, time to go search for that cup again.

I guess my point here is that the more experience you have looking at photos the more you have to lean about balancing flash to get poor, moderate, good, excellent results. It is a never ending learning curve. Like I said, search for the elusive cup.

Peter Boyd Loc: Blyth nr. Newcastle U.K.

Nikon flashguns are rated at 5,400K.

nekon Loc: Carterton, New Zealand

Whatever you believe, is true-for you

Kodak tells us that mid grey is 12.9%; yet many believe it to be 18%

nekon Loc: Carterton, New Zealand

Under fluorescent lighting, a green gel on flash; FD filter,(magenta) on lens

anotherview Loc: California

Good morning. I own the Mini Pocket Wizard flash control gear, but it proved flaky and unreliable in practice. Often I could not get it to repeat set flash lighting. Etc. Maybe I should revisit this gear to give it another try.

Meanwhile, I use Cowboy Studio flash triggers. They only trigger the flash unit, and the flash unit requires manual adjustment for flash output. But I do not mind that much. Besides, once set, the lighting for my studio work needs no further adjustment.

You may wish to give these manual flash trigers a try:

http://www.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-NPT-04-Channel-Wireless-Receiver/dp/B002W3IXZW

Note that you will need one receiver for each flash unit in use in your setup.

The one transmitter goes in the camera's hotshoe, and it sends a triggering signal to all the receivers.

So far, I've found this gear reliable in my home studio.

Two notes: 1. The batteries in the receivers will drain if you leave them switched on. Switch them off when not in use.

2. Each receiver has two dip switches allowing a setting for one of four channels. If near another flash triggering setup using a similar radio frequency to your flash triggers, then you'd want to select one of the other four channels to avoid interference.

But if in isolation from other setups, you could just push all four dip switches to the same position on each receiver. I do so by pushing all dip switches forward. The one transmitter than triggers all receivers.

I agree flash lighting takes time to learn. It has its own learning curve, but I've found it worth doing because then many more photo opportunities present themselves.

Here's one I did using bounced flash lighting in a restaurant.

Good luck.

Sushi Plate

Peter Boyd Loc: Blyth nr. Newcastle U.K.

Its not what I believe is true - its what Nikon tell me!