Joe McNally and his trusty Magenta Filter

I have recently been reading "The Moment It Clicks" by Joe McNally. A good, fun read. I am halfway through it, and he has referenced the same technique about a half dozen times.

I find it curious because I have never heard anyone mention it before.

When he shoot in florescent light, he seems to always do the following:

1) Gel the flash with CC green;
2) Add a 30 magenta filter to his lens
3) Shoot away

He says he does it even now that he has switched to digital. He seems to get great results with it.

Anyone comment on this technique?

Thanks!

With digital, the magenta filter isn't really necessary since you can set the white balance, but I suppose he does it out of habit. I'm not sure what you mean by commenting on the technique, but I can explain the reasoning behind it.

Cameras are fairly sensitive to mixed lighting (lights of different temperature, i.e. tungsten vs fluorescent vs daylight), so taking pictures with mixed lighting looks kind of weird. Using a flash with white light in an environment with fluorescent lights will result in an image where the main subject is mostly in the right light but the background will have a green tint (from the ambient light).

You can solve this problem by placing the correct color gel on the flash to match the ambient light so the lighting is consistent. Then you put a filter in front of the lens to adjust for greenish light (a magenta filter in this case). However, with digital you can fix this fairly easily without needing a filter on the lens since you can set the white balance or fix it in PP.

Lidor7 wrote in post #6088887
With digital, the magenta filter isn't really necessary since you can set the white balance, but I suppose he does it out of habit. I'm not sure what you mean by commenting on the technique, but I can explain the reasoning behind it.

Cameras are fairly sensitive to mixed lighting (lights of different temperature, i.e. tungsten vs fluorescent vs daylight), so taking pictures with mixed lighting looks kind of weird. Using a flash with white light in an environment with fluorescent lights will result in an image where the main subject is mostly in the right light but the background will have a green tint (from the ambient light).

You can solve this problem by placing the correct color gel on the flash to match the ambient light so the lighting is consistent. Then you put a filter in front of the lens to adjust for greenish light (a magenta filter in this case). However, with digital you can fix this fairly easily without needing a filter on the lens since you can set the white balance or fix it in PP.

Thanks. I just checked one of the articles he wrote -- he explained he doesn't trust the florescent white balance in his camera. Must be a Nikon thing!

You're quite right up until that last point. If you have a mixed set of color temperatures, some from your flash and some from fluoros, it will be a mixed bag and and you cannot take out all of the color casts in PP. If you fix the foreground and the background is lit by tubes, your background will go green... even in digital, even if you fix the WB in post. You can only WB for one color temperature at a time so if you have 2 or more in the scene, you will have a a glow in one area or the other. Why would it be different in digital since you obviously know the reasoning for film?

To Matt, yes, this is an old standard technique that newspaper photographers have been doing for decades and I'd guess they still do it.

Putting the green gel over the flash results in a fluorescent-ish color, that is corrected by the magenta filter over the lens.

brucea wrote in post #6089085
Putting the green gel over the flash results in a fluorescent-ish color, that is corrected by the magenta filter over the lens.

I would guess then this was used with daylight balanced film?

The green gel is to match the light temperature of the flash to the light temperature of the florescent lights. The green gel is for flashes/strobes since they give out a specific range of light temperature. If you are using tungsten type lighting, it would require different set of gels to balance.

The magenta filter is not necessary in digital as you can correct the WB in camera or in PP.

You also need your shutterspeed to be 1/120; 1/60; 1/30; 1/15s or so (if your country has a 60Hz mains frequency)

Oh I see what Lidor7 meant up there -- it is the same with digital except you don't have to use the filter as long as your light sources are balanced.

TheHoff wrote in post #6092141
Oh I see what Lidor7 meant up there -- it is the same with digital except you don't have to use the filter as long as your light sources are balanced.

That makes sense. What he maintains, though, is that he can't trust his fl wb, so he shoots in daylight balance with the magenta filter.

Just curious if anyone has one of these laying around that they would be willing to try?