Sports and Gels

[MDalby]

When do you use gels if at all? Why do you use gels? I can see if you were doing studio work and wanted to change the background color and leave a different strobe with no gel for the foreground.

If we are bouncing light for sports, when would we use gels?

Thanks,

MD

[tjk60]

Mark, I rarely use them, mostly because I'm overpowering the ambient. Many people will match the flash to the type of light, especially when it's tungsten, and it's not really a bad idea, I just don;t have time to play that game and get it right...

[donek]

Mark,

I've used gels when I'm shooting direct flash. I don't typically bounce my SB-800s as they aren't powerfull enough to stop the action when I bounce them. As a result I gell to get closer to the ambient. Doing so simply makes the color of the backgound more closely match the color of my subject. I only use the gels that came with the flash. The way I determine what color to use is simply set my white balance to flash and fire a picture of the scene without flash. If the picture looks orange, I add the orange gels. If it looks green, I add the green gels. Once everything is set up I then adjust my white balance to make the players look natural.

[MDalby]

Thanks Sean! Currently I have to do on camera so I have to bounce. I will give this a try when I can do remote.

MD

[Mr. 2H2O]

I don't gel in sports - I'd say its pretty much impossible from my point of view. The lights cycle different colors and in the dark gyms I mess around in the lights are different colors from one end to the other.

I use one flash remotely with ebay triggers on full with a GN of 120, bounce with a better bounce card reflector high up and shoot at ISO800 and pick whatever shutter speed I like for the subjects I'm shooting - usually 1/250 (I use a bridge camera so I can pick whatever shutter speed I want).

The coaches have said they don't notice it and the players are concentrating too much to have any comment on noticing any flash. Sometimes the refs request no flash so I just skip pics of the game.

- Mike