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Anyone take an external flash to WDW?
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Deadmanwalking
Member
I have in the past but it really only helps when photographing the kids with characters....
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Once upon a time, i photographed a halloween parade with a SB-80 speedlight on 1/4 power clamped to a streetlight and aimed down.
WDWFigment
Well-Known Member
I use one. Nothing off camera yet, though. I have some gels that I'm going to fiddle with next time.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
i love going CTO off camera and making the image very warm.
JROK
Member
But with RAW allowing custom white balance is CTO or CTB necessary? I could see if you were using it for dramatic lighting like a rim light or something, but would it be necessary for portrait style, flat images?
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
I'm not getting into another RAW argument.
It would not be necessary for simple, flat, even toned pictures.
My style is slightly different.
JROK
Member
That's why I specified dramatic lighting such as a rim light... Most of the pictures I see people taking in parks are just your average shots and nothing I would see needing gels, which is why I was questioning PhotoDave's use of it.
@PhotoDave:
Do you have an example of your style utilizing CTO?
Llamaface
Member
But it doesn't have to be dramatic lighting...or even off-camera lighting.
As an example, taking a picture of someone posing in front of any typical Disney scene using boring, on-camera flash. If you try to warm that person's skin tone up using white balance you warm everything in the scene including the background. It's roughly the same as putting a orange gel on your lens as opposed to your flash.
If you warm the skin tones using a CTO gel on your flash, you will warm up the person without altering the background colour temps. Is it, as you said, needed? Of course not. But it's such a simple way to improve your images.
If you want to get funky with it, change your white balance to tungsten (giving your overall shot a blue tone) then stack 2 CTO gels on your flash. The first one cancels out the blue tone on any area lit by the flash (bringing it back to "daylight" temp), the second one adds that warmer orange tone to that same area. You end up with a dramatic feel to the image as blue/orange play nicely off each other.
Again, you don't need the filters. You may not even need the flash. But both can elevate a simple image into a great one.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
This is in my back yard, two CTB backlight and CTO key light, shot on tungsten WB.
Red gel camera left, 1/2 CTB behind & CTO softboxed camera right.
Red gel behind, CTO camera right
Basically..... if you shoot on Tungsten WB & your key light is CTO orange, the camera sees that as normal ..... which makes normal daylight or an ungelled flash look bluish.
If you shoot it on flash WB or cloudy, it gets warmer and warmer. Almost obnoxiously so.
Red gel camera left, 1/2 CTB behind & CTO softboxed camera right.
Red gel behind, CTO camera right
Basically..... if you shoot on Tungsten WB & your key light is CTO orange, the camera sees that as normal ..... which makes normal daylight or an ungelled flash look bluish.
If you shoot it on flash WB or cloudy, it gets warmer and warmer. Almost obnoxiously so.
WDWFigment
Well-Known Member
Dave - I really like that shot. I really wish you had one of those overhead diagrams to illustrate what you did. Lighting is a really weak point for me (I usually just go natural), and it's something I really need to work on.
This is definitely not a RAW v. JPG debate. White balance does not make the difference unless the flash evenly hits everything in your frame. A perfect example would portraits on Main Street. If you don't use a warming gel, you cannot get the white balance correct on both the individuals in the shot, and the background lights. I know because I have made this mistake a number of times.
This is definitely not a RAW v. JPG debate. White balance does not make the difference unless the flash evenly hits everything in your frame. A perfect example would portraits on Main Street. If you don't use a warming gel, you cannot get the white balance correct on both the individuals in the shot, and the background lights. I know because I have made this mistake a number of times.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
We'll talk offline about this as to not bore the ever living bejesus out of everyone.....
JROK
Member
Thanks for posting the pic, I guess I wasn't thinking clearly about it. To me that football pic is very dramatic and stylized. I was stuck thinking about using it in the parks.
I come from a video background so we use CTO and CTB to match whatever keylight we have (like using CTB if we have tungsten lights outside and want them to match the sun), and I wasn't clearly thinking about the scene as a whole and was stuck thinking about the rim light and skin tones. In my head I was seeing somebody using a hot-shoe flash, in daylight on mainstreet, in which case no gel would be necessary as the flash is 5600K.
I come from a video background so we use CTO and CTB to match whatever keylight we have (like using CTB if we have tungsten lights outside and want them to match the sun), and I wasn't clearly thinking about the scene as a whole and was stuck thinking about the rim light and skin tones. In my head I was seeing somebody using a hot-shoe flash, in daylight on mainstreet, in which case no gel would be necessary as the flash is 5600K.
Figment1986
Well-Known Member
I do, but I'm still experimenting with it, other than "news" photography.. it's rarely used.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Think its an overcast day. Shoot tungsten, underexpose it by 2 stops so the sky gets super blue, shoot a character with a CTO'd flash off camera. Should look dramatic as all get out.
Part of what i do is to walk into a situation and figure out what i can do within 30-45 seconds, given the environment. Framing, composition, lighting, etc.
WDWFigment
Well-Known Member
I still have a ways to go before I'm even at this point. We'll see how things go after our next trip and I'll see if I have any interest in this. At this point I don't have the equipment for anything off camera anyway, so it would be a lost cause. Too bad money is finite...