correct WB with flash

[danielyamseng]

Here is the effect when shooting with flash:-

i) flash WB - similiar shooting using AWB, picture shifted towards yellowish.

ii) 5500 K - picture is reddish. Set to until 3900K would result chocolate reddish skin tone.

I can't balance the flash WB eventhough the flash is a predominant light.

Is there any way to correctly balance the flash on camera? How do you guy tackle this problem?

[johnz]

That is a good question. WB is one of the hardest things for me to get right in camera, and very difficult in post too if you ask me.

My tackle on this is using a gray card and setting the wb manually, this works fine but when the light changes you have to do this again, and i don't always have the energy or the time, so end up shooting in AWB and fix it in post. The hardest part in the post fix is to get the same "correct" WB in all the shots. I usually end up up with a little variance between the shots.. and hate it.

[René Damkot]

I usually gel the flash to give it the same color as the ambient. The only way to get consistant WB: Otherwise, WB will vary depending on flash to ambient ratio...

[danielyamseng]

Let say if the ambient light is a tungsten light, then I should use yellow color gel? And if it's a flourescent, I should use the blue gel?

[dle42]

If it's tungsten, a CTO (& 1/2, 1/4, etc.) should do.
For fluorescents, you can gel the flash with a plusgreen.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=460248 is a slightly different approach to fluorescents.

[johnz]

When your using gels, do you set the wb with graycard, or shoot with tungsten wb?

[René Damkot]

If the ambient is tungsten, I use a CTO on the flash, and set Tungsten WB.

[Hermes]

When your using gels, do you set the wb with graycard, or shoot with tungsten wb?

If you're shooting purely in tungsten lighting and you've gelled your flash with a CTO, you can just use tungsten WB. However, you will probably find yourself in other situations where gelling the flash to precisely match the ambient isn't as easy (fluorescent or sodium-vapour lighting for example) - in those situations it is best to take a grey card reading at your subject's position so you at least know that the light hitting them will be rendered neutral.