Colored Walls & Bounced Flash

Ok. I've been reading all of Curtis' links about bouncing flash as well as a lot of the posts here. Now everyone talks about bouncing flash indoors against white walls or ceilings. What happens when you have colored walls or ceilings? I assume you get a color cast on your pics. Oh, just to clarify, I'm taking pics of people indoors.

Hey,

Yes, there will be a colour cast, but your camera's auto white balance might be able to deal with it, otherwise you can shoot in raw and remove the cast later.

It gets tricky when you have light bounced off multiple surfaces with multiple colours tho

Some people use something like a Westcott Mini Apollo or Photoflex mini Q39 softbox designed for on camera and bracket mounted flash. They are about 12 x 12 or 12 x 16 and allow you to fire straight ahead and have significant diffusion and softening of shadows without having a surface to bounce from.

@linarms & TMR Design: Thanks for your replies. Will try to deal with the color cast by shooting RAW since I don't have any fancy equipment. I imagine it will be rather hellish lol. Thanks again.

It just depends...sometimes that color cast can work to your advantage! I've found that if its just a minor color difference it doesn't seem to be anything that cant be handled with the right WB settings either in camera or in post. It's only the RED walls and things like that that really cause a problem. I've bounced off wood before when I wanted a warmer tone, stuff like that though.

You can also use various products by LumiQuest; the Softbox or Promax come to mind. The latter is usually meant to bounce 80/20 (80% off ceiling/wall, 20% forward) but comes with reflector inserts (white/silver/gold) to direct all of the light rather than bouncing some. You can further diffuse the light with the diffuser panel. A simpler setup would be to just use the Softbox if that fits your style better, and is easier to set up and tear down.

With white celings and/or walls I use the Lightsphere II clear model..for colored walls/celings I use the Lumiquest Soft box with a +1 FEC at IS0 400. I shoot jpeg because you can change the white balance in the raw editor like you can raw if you have cs3, other wise raw would be the best bet (can't believe I said that)

But I have a question..in rooms with the colored walls like brown, red, etc....that you cannot really work on the white balance, if using the lightsphere since it has the dome and things, will it also bounce colored light? If so is there a way to deal with that or should I revert to the soft box..trouble with the softbox in vertical position is you still have the shadows if not using a bracket.

The lightsphere also works on the theory of bouncing light so it will also give a color cast . I've used an LSII because it somewhat negates the need for a bracket but it only works in a narrow range of conditions. I bought a bracket - Stroboframe CameraFlip. The LSII doesn't even get out of the house now.

Yeah, I hear the same from other photographers. So with your flash on a bracket do you use straight flash or softbox? I've tried both but am interested in what other photographers use...do you use your bracket on outdoor portraits?

LightUser wrote in post #4364984
Yeah, I hear the same from other photographers. So with your flash on a bracket do you use straight flash or softbox? I've tried both but am interested in what other photographers use...do you use your bracket on outdoor portraits?

Whenever I'm using my Speedlite (an old 420EX), I am using the LumiQuest Promax System and the rig is mounted atop my modified Stroboframe CameraFlip bracket. I use this combination indoors, outdoors, anywhere, anytime.

SkipD wrote in post #4365091
Whenever I'm using my Speedlite (an old 420EX), I am using the LumiQuest Promax System and the rig is mounted atop my modified Stroboframe CameraFlip bracket. I use this combination indoors, outdoors, anywhere, anytime.

Same here...with the occasional exception outdoors. Depending on the desired results/circumstances I'll sometimes use direct flash. But the bracket always keeps my flash over the lens.

Sounds good to me..thanks....guess my lightsphere will be hitting ebay soon.

Now I have a question about the camera flip brackets. If you keep the flash above the lens and not flip it, then how does it cover the scene when flipping the camera verticle? The flash head is manufactured in horizontal by design and if you keep it horizontal but flip the camera verticle, how do you get the flash to cover the entire scene without any vigenetting on the top and bottom of the image. I tried a camera flip and there were dark areas at the top and bottom of the scene because the flash covered horizontal more than verticle since it stayed in the horizontal position.

I've not noticed any vignetting when the Lumiquest ProMax unit is mounted on the flash. Perhaps there would be at extreme ranges but for normal wedding/event shooting I've not had a problem.