Colour correction gels on location

GET SET UP FOR OFF-CAMERA FLASH AND LEARN TO SHIFT YOUR COLOURS FOR WONDERFULLY WARM BACKDROPS

1 Off-camera Speedlight

Our off-camera flash here is a Speedlight set to manual mode at 1/8 power and attached to a light stand via an umbrella fitting. The flash is positioned to the side of the subject for soft, directional light over the face that also serves to emphasize the texture of the frosty fallen tree.

2 Cooling the light

Our flash is fitted with a 1/2 Colour Temperature Blue (CTB) gel. This cools down the light source, producing blue light over our subject. By setting our white balance to match the cool light hitting the subject, we can make the light in the background appear warmer while still retaining natural skin tones.

3 Exposure and white balance

The camera is in Manual exposure mode with shutter speed 1/200 sec, ISO100 and aperture f/3.5. After taking a test shot with just the ambient light, our white balance was initially at around 6200 K. Then after turning on the flash, we shifted it to 9000 K to warm the scene.

4 Use an umbrella

A light modifier will diffuse and spread the light from your flash, which usually makes it more flattering for portraiture. We used a large parabolic silver umbrella here. Parabolic umbrellas have more panels than standard umbrellas and, as such, tend to have more of a wraparound quality.

5 Shoot into the sun

There are three benefits to shooting into the setting sun. First, it backlights the subject and creates an attractive halo effect. Second, it places their face in shade so the ambient light has less of an influence on the skin tones. Third, the colours around the setting sun are usually the most vibrant part of the sky.

6 Shoot in Raw

If we set our camera to Raw format, it records greater colour information, which can be hugely useful when shooting mixed colour temperatures. It gives us a safety net to alter the white balance after-the-fact, with exactly the same results as if we’d set it before taking the shot.